Awkward!

[Deepcrush]

I feel that it is right that Americans only be yelled at as we are the main cause of and the best solution to all the worlds problems. Such is life as it is. I study a vast amount of history but I rarely come across what cause the downfall of the British Empire. I mean I know that we beat, well, just about everyone, several times in some cases. But, still... what happened to you guys?

[Deepcrush]

Oh, I don't know. You surrendered your empire pretty damn quickly.

No! The FRENCH surrendered pretty damn quickly! Even I wouldn't call the British quick for ever giving up anything.

[Tsukiyumi]

Hey, they hung on to Hong Kong until 1999. That says something. Personally, I think our cousins across the pond are pretty awesome.

[Enkidu]

I feel that it is right that Americans only be yelled at as we are the main cause of and the best solution to all the worlds problems. Such is life as it is. I study a vast amount of history but I rarely come across what cause the downfall of the British Empire. I mean I know that we beat, well, just about everyone, several times in some cases. But, still... what happened to you guys?

Oversimplified answer:
First World War - finished leaving the British Empire at it's very largest but exhausted, coffers drained and with massive casualties. Then came the global economic depression, and growing unrest in the Empire. Revolutionary and nationalist ideas where spreading across the Globe, and the days of colonial Empires, no matter what the flag, where numbered.
Then the rise of Fascism, and the British and French appeased them as there was no stomach for more war. (Chamberlain had lost sons, and he didn't want anymore families to go through it)
Second World War - Britain held on, but desperately needed material. Soon burnt up the cash, then traded technical secrets that surrendered the UK's position as still just about the most scientifically advanced nation (jets, computers, cavity magratons, among others) to the US for material aid, then lend lease (finished paying off in 2006).
War ended, Britain bankrupt, bombed out, and anxious for social change. Idealistic, but naive, Socialist government determined to provide it by building a welfare state at the expense of Empire.
Major early defeats to the Japanese had punctured the image of Western, and especially British, invincibity in the minds of millions of Imperial subjects. These colonies, some of which had been tribal grouping as little as a generation before, where now fairly modern with nationalist sentiments and political movements. Britain retreats from Empire, and the sun sets on the British Empire, and indeed the concept of Colonial and Imperial rule.

[Captain Seafort]

*snip*

Pretty much the case, although the fact that a big chunk of the Merchant Navy was on the bottom of the Atlantic also had a good deal to do with it. The speed of the withdrawal from East of Suez was largely due to the unfavourable US response to the Suez Crisis, effectively forcing us to withdraw from the African colonies without the step-by-step handover that was achieved in India and Malaya. It was one reason for the chaos that engulfed Africa after the colonial retreat.

As for whether the Empire is truly dead, that is not the case, as General Galtieri discovered to his cost.

[Mikey]

Empire building and maintenance are dead. Don't give Galtieri as an example - Argentina is still an independent nation. So, you got a couple of rocks back... in the glory days of the Empire, you would have taken them back and then annexed all of Argentina.

The US is in the same boat - I'm not picking on England. What have we got left? A few land lease agreements for military presences in many places, the "commonwealth" of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the American Virgin Islands.

It's just not the right kind of world for that sort of empire anymore.

[Captain Seafort]

Empire building and maintenance are dead. Don't give Galtieri as an example - Argentina is still an independent nation. So, you got a couple of rocks back... in the glory days of the Empire, you would have taken them back and then annexed all of Argentina.

Perhaps. On the other hand there were plenty of examples where a local power offended Britain, got slapped down hard by the Royal Navy, and that was that. No annexations involved. The point that Britain is still prepared to defend its few remaining imperial possesions stands.

The US is in the same boat - I'm not picking on England. What have we got left? A few land lease agreements for military presences in many places, the "commonwealth" of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the American Virgin Islands.

Plus Alaska, Hawaii, and the continental US. Depending on how you define an empire, everthing outside the territory of the original thirteen states could be defined as imperial possesions.

[Mikey]

You'd have to stretch credibility to consider outlying states as imperial possessions of the US. I've been to Hawaii, and the poeple there don't refer to themselves as colonists...

Maybe you folks refer to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland (perhaps even Cornwall) as imperial possessions. If so, I would say that doing so is just a balm to soothe England's long-lost and injured imperial pride. It's just a different world.

[Captain Seafort]

You'd have to stretch credibility to consider outlying states as imperial possessions of the US. I've been to Hawaii, and the poeple there don't refer to themselves as colonists...

Maybe you folks refer to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland (perhaps even Cornwall) as imperial possessions. If so, I would say that doing so is just a balm to soothe England's long-lost and injured imperial pride. It's just a different world.

Whether the locals consider themselves to be a imperial posession, and whether the location originally joined the country as a colonial possession are two different questions. Look back far enough and not only are Wales, Scotland and NI imperial possesions of England, but England itself is an imperial posession of the Dutchy of Normandy, and most of England is an imperial possesion of Wessex.

[Jordanis]

For a while, France was an imperial posession of England. Ahh, those were the days...

[Captain Seafort]

For a while, France was an imperial posession of England. Ahh, those were the days...

Technically that was a union of the crowns in the persons of Henry V and VI, just as the Anglo-Scottish union was from 1603 to 1707, rather than an act of conquest. However, given the pasting they'd just got at Agincourt, it wasn't exactly voluntary on the part of the French.

[Mikey]

Whether the locals consider themselves to be a imperial posession, and whether the location originally joined the country as a colonial possession are two different questions.

Very true, but how an area became part of another historically bears little on how it is considered today. Nobody calls Alaska "Seward's Folly" anymore. I'm dure nobody in England reminisces about the good old days when they were all Aelfred's subjects.

[Jordanis]

For a while, France was an imperial posession of England. Ahh, those were the days...

Technically that was a union of the crowns in the persons of Henry V and VI, just as the Anglo-Scottish union was from 1603 to 1707, rather than an act of conquest. However, given the pasting they'd just got at Agincourt, it wasn't exactly voluntary on the part of the French.

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day 'til the ending of the WORLD but we in it shall be remember'd. We few. We happy few...

I like that play.

[Captain Seafort]

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day 'til the ending of the WORLD but we in it shall be remember'd. We few. We happy few...

I like that play.

And Gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

One of the greatest speeches the English language has ever produced.

[Jordanis]

Agreed. I would love to hear Patrick Stewart give it, though. Kenneth Branagh did an excellent job, his performance gives me chills, but he's a tenor. I want to hear it with Stewart's voice behind it.