How Did a Small Island Make a Large Empire?

Each of them have their own story of glory. I have written a lot on the rise of England, and
will summarise them here:

1. England was somewhat a late starter in the colonial game and got the benefit of
the exploration and pioneering of the Portuguese and Dutch.
2. England’s law of primogeniture [first born sons inherit all the family lands]
pushed a lot of well educated, well connected sons of aristocratic families who had
to make fortune in the colonies and helped the growth of these colonies.
3. England went through revolution and chaos earlier than rest of Europe - that
helped their people - especially rebels and conflicts - to settle around the world.
When the rest of Europe went through their chaos and revolutions - England had
already settled and was able to dominate proceedings unimpeded by the other
European powers.
4. They were close enough to Europe to get their ideas, but still geographically
isolated by the English channel to prevent an onslaught of the European empires.
Thus, England was able to avoid a lot of the madness that befell the French,
Germans and other European cultures. The constant fight between Spain and
Portugal too resulted in a lot of loss of colonial possessions.
5. England was able to get to India at the right time. Aided by the collapse of the
French empire and chaos in Iberia, they were the sole European power left intact
in India. Their rise in India paralleled the collapse of the Mughal empire and aided
by the mistakes made by the Maratha empire. Controlling the second largest
economy in the world of that time provided a lot of benefits.
There have been many large empires in the human history. But British Empire was a unique
empire that it was first economic empire and sun was always shining in British Empire. The
reasons for success of British wereas -

 Stability at home- After the Union of England & Scotland in 1707, Britain
became a very peaceful country and there was no infighting in the country.
 Naval Power- Britain became a supreme Naval power after defeating the
Spanish Armada and they understood the power of Navy being an island nation.
British Navy ruled the waves of the world and thus secured British interests all
around the world.
 Instability in Europe - Europe was devastated during wars in Napoleonic era.
Even though British participated in many wars during the era, all wars were
fraught on European mainland and thus Britain was saved from devastation unlike
whole of Europe.
 Industrial Revolution - Britain became supreme economic power due to
Industrial Revolution and it changed the world for ever. Britain had a head start of
many decades over her European rivals in Industrial revolution and their proved
to be key later in creating Empire.
 Some sort of democracy- Gradually democracy stared taking its root in England
and absolute monarchy was abolished and Monarchy was answerable to people &
parliament.
 Right Leadership - Britain was fortunate to have visionary and military leaders
at right time. They proved to be decisive at crucial junctions. Some of the examples
are - Lord Nelson, Duke of Wellington , Clive Loyad, Cecil Rhodes etc.
 
Giving importance to economy - British used to sent merchants first and then
they used to sent army to protect these merchants later. This method was hugely
successful in capturing 1/5th of world’s population in India.
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Technological, Strategic and Industrial Superiority!!

The British had no monopoly on technological innovation. Gunpowder, the printing press,
navigational equipment were all developed and improved on the continent or further afield
yet. Europe from the fifteenth century onwards was becoming a dynamic place where new
ideas were swirling around with unnatural haste. Britain was benefitting from this much
wider European Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment and yet it was also in a position to
take these ideas, and many others, much further as it would become the first nation to
harness the power of steam which in turn would unleash an Industrial Revolution and an
avalanche of high quality, mass-produced goods that would flood markets all around the
world. They, in turn, would provide a technology gap that non-European nations would find
difficult to compete with. Precision-made muskets, rifles, machine guns, train locomotives,
steam ships would provide the relatively small and over-stretched British armed forces with
unparalleled advantages. They could take on vastly larger (and possibly braver) enemies and
yet beat them off, subdue and suppress them. British weaponry was very effective and its
communication systems allowed it to shepherd its meagre resources to devastating effect
and even its medical resources would improve enough to allow its soldiers and sailors to
penetrate deeper and more inaccessible areas. Britain was not the only nation to enjoy a
technological advantage over non-European nations, but its combination of industrial
might, commercial prowess and maritime power meant that it had a peculiar advantage and
one that would not be challenged until the development of guerilla warfare and tactics in the
twentieth century.
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 These 5 things make the conditions quite favorable for the UK

A) It is hard to invade and attack (compare the UK with Belgium for instance)
B) It is connected to the rest of the world with its waterways
C) It is close to continental Europe (unlike Iceland for instance)
D) It has good land and weather conditions (which makes it favorable for development). 
E) It’s a Western European country, has European culture, etc. It didn’t develop on its own.
European countries became stronger together whether it is through sharing knowledge and
innovation or competition which drives for further innovation and discoveries.

Note that the UK is not that strong as it only conquered weaker territories unlike France, or
Germany, for example, who tried to conquer their neighbors. This is not just about
imperialism, you can sense a population’s culture and mindset through their history as a
whole.

There were many factors. Although the English/British were not the first european
colonizers, they had many factors that allowed them to dominate.
 1. Money. London was the financial capital of the world, allowing the British to be
able to afford the latest equipment for their military and to be able to afford to run
a big empire.
2. The Navy. The Royal Navy was forged by experience throughout the 17th and
18th centuries to become the mightiest in the world. Led by competent admirals
and manned by well trained seamen, the Royal Navy in the century after Trafalgar
was so dominant that it could be used to intimidate enemies into submission and
thus get Britain’s way. This was notably during the Don Pacifico Affair in the
1850’s where Palmerston declared anyone messing with a British subject would
have to take up their grievances with a Royal Navy gunboat, and also with the
Preventative Squadron, dealing with forcing nations to free their slaves. The Royal
Navy repeatedly and ruthlessly violated Brazilian Sovereignty in order to get at and
free their Slaves. They did this safe in the knowledge that nobody dared touch
them.
3. Wars. The War of Spanish Succession and the 7 year’s war both ended with
Britain being given large swathes of territory by their continental rivals, such as
Gibraltar after the Spanish Succession and French Canada after the Seven Year’s
war.
4. Rivals making mistakes. The French leadership during the 18th century so
disastrously mismanaged the economy that they brought about a Revolution and
the rise of Napoleon, who did not much care for colonies outside of Europe so sold
Louisiana to the USA. The Spanish were in decline because they had stolen too
much gold from the new world without taking economic precautions and
stagnated their economy.
5. Exploiting local divisions. They did this in india. There were plenty of Indians
who relied on British rule to keep their own power, for example certain
Maharajahs.
I hope this helps wth your query.

Arnaud Lacrampe, Software Engineer

Answered Jun 18
Mostly by vastly overstating both their "underdog" status and their accomplishments.

 For starters the British isles are not Vanuatu. They are larger than quite a few
European countries.
 In fact their island status is probably the only thing that has protected them
from being invaded multiple times since 1066.
 They were far from being the only countries with large colonial empires.
 They for the most part conquered Stone age and Iron Age societies with very low
population density. Woopty do.
 A lot of the land they controlled may have looked impressive on a map but was
in fact large uninhabited lands or deserts.