#the british empire

[northern-punk-lad]

A very important video on the money Glasgow made from the empire and especially Scotland role in the slave trade

[ripstefano]

The British Army 1914-18

“If the British Army landed in Europe, I’d get the Belgian police to arrest them.”

Bismark

The British Army in World War I was a primarily volunteer force at the war's onset, numbering around 700,000 soldiers, and vastly expanded as the war progressed. In 1916, the British government introduced conscription to meet the demands of trench warfare and the high casualties on the Western Front. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) fought alongside French, Belgian, and Commonwealth forces in brutal battles, such as the Somme and Passchendaele, where they endured devastating losses. The army faced challenges in adapting to new military technologies, like machine guns, tanks, and poison gas, which transformed the nature of combat into a grueling and static war of attrition.

From The British Army 1914-18

[for-valour]

(Part 2!)

For the final day of Wimbledon, here is a little gifset of Bertie with his friend (and later equerry), Louis Greig as they played that ill-fated doubles match against the older and more experienced pairing of Herbert Roper Barret and Arthur Gore.

I also wanted to share two other lesser-known tournaments involving our dear Prince Bertie!

First: In 1922, four years before his appearance at Wimbledon, Bertie partnered in a mixed doubles game with Miss Peggy Ingram at a tennis party in Lady Crosfield’s home in Highgate. Here are two gifs from that day.

(I love the first gif, with Bertie swinging his racquet around like a petulant teenager. Guess they must have lost that day 😆)

And second: A year after Wimbledon, in 1927, Bertie undertook a tour of the British Empire, including a visit to Jamaica where he partnered with talented Jamaican sportsman Bertrand Milbourne Clark (below) in another game of doubles. Mr. Milbourne Clark was the All-Jamaica Tennis Champion for seven consecutive years - so I really hope they won this match!

This pairing was considered incredibly unusual at the time, and so was seen as a positive and progressive display of racial equality between both men, and friendship between both nations ☺️

gifs made by @for-valour

Sources: YouTube, Pathé, Reuters, Wikimedia Commons.

[arabella-strange]

u/deet0109:

Now that the UK has agreed to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the sun will finally set on the British Empire for the first time in centuries

[full news story from the Guardian here, 3 Oct 2024]

[redditreceipts]

my favorite song of hers <3

radical feminism and anti-imperialism should always go hand in hand

[hplovecraftmuseum]

H. P. Lovecraft was an extreme Anglophile and considered himself a loyal Englishman all his life. On the other hand for many of the foreign-born subjects of the once mighty British Empire that enthusiam has been considerably lacking. Such an attitude is reflected quite plainly in the political cartoon below. Great Cthulhu, the 'squid-dragon' is today actually worshipped by fringe organizations who see him as a god, others who see him as a humorous plush toy, some who know him only as an evil monster to be battled against in roll playing games. Like the global status of the British Empire, Cthulhu's nature is perhaps a state of mind and individual perspective! (Exhibit 374)

[asocial-skye]

you know, I see all these comparisons between the republic and America and Rome and all these fancy ass literature parallels, and I’m like guys, it’s the British empire. It’s literally the British empire.

where else besides the fucking British empire would you get the corrupt, clueless fucks that are the east India trading company, oh sorry the trade federation. why would the republic focus on the core worlds only-oh sorry, is this your first time in history? every colony is stripped of its resources and all wealth filters to Britain- I mean the core worlds. A bunch of rich, aristocratic, out-of-touch fuckers running shit? parliament. They even talk with fucking British accents.

[jbfly46]

Lol at Hitler giving speeches about the negative global effects of colonialism and the British empire being the source of the world’s problems. If the winners of wars write the history, what really happened in WWII?

[w-r-pitt]

Maps of Twenty-five Obscure British Colonial Territories:

1. British Sphere of Influence in Siam (Zone of influence of the United Kingdom; Agreed upon with France, Siam's only other neighbouring state besides Britain) (15 Jan 1896 - 14 Jul 1925):

Source of map:

https://omniatlas.com/maps/southern-asia/19250512/plain/

2. Mombaza (Protectorate of the United Kingdom) (9 Feb 1824 - 25 Jul 1826):

Source of map:

https://crouchrarebooks.com/browse/a-manuscript-chart-of-mombasa/

3. Adamawa Emirate (Emirate of Yola) (Subordinate to the Sokoto Caliphate, which was under British control; legally part of German Kamerun) (1897 - at least 1915):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sokoto_Sultanate.png

4. Corinto (Cirinto, Cobinto) (Administered occupied territory of the United Kingdom) (13:00 27 April 1895 - 5 May 1895):

Source of map:

https://imgur.com/phDUNur

5. Hyder (Village in the United States that is partially integrated into the Dominion of Canada) (20th century - Present):

Source of map:

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/folks-living-in-this-tiny-outpost-on-the-alaskan-border-may-use-canadian-dollars-but-theyre-still-100-american

6. King Edward VII Plateau (Formally claimed for the United Kingdom by Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS FRSGS on 9 Jan 1909):

Source of map:

https://www.loc.gov/item/2002624045/

7. British Concession of Chinde (British Concession in Portuguese Mozambique; Subordinate to the Nyasaland Protectorate; Abandoned in 1923) (1 Jan 1892 - 22 Jul 1925):

Source of map:

https://www.spink.com/lot/21127001647#

8. Holy Roman Empire (Ruled by Richard of Cornwall, prince and native of the Kingdom of England) (13 January 1257 - 2 April 1272):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mitteleuropa_zur_Zeit_der_Staufer.svg

9. State of Brazil (Dejure colony of the British Protectorate of the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves) (1808 - 1815):

Source of map:

https://www.panmythica.com/2008/04/mapas-histricos-do-brasil.html

10. Thibet (Defacto British Protectorate) (Late nineteenth century - 1948):

Source of map:

https://epdf.pub/queue/soldaten-atlas.html

11. Territory of Ruanda-Urundi (Ruled from London by the Belgian Government-in-exile) (Oct 1940 - Sep 1944):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LocationRuandaUrundi.png

12. United Kingdom of Chishingaland (Self-proclaimed British Protectorate) (At least 2018 - Present):

Source of map:

https://www.tumblr.com/w-r-pitt/773650293226422272/the-united-kingdom-of-chishingaland-british?source=share

13. British Zone of Influence in Arabia (29 Jul 1913 - 1949?):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Empire_Anachronous_4.PNG

14. Saudi Arabia Protectorate (Defacto British Protectorate under the Treaty of Darin) (26 Dec 1915 - 20 May 1927):

Source of map:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qTeIlZFNc9S2McO-cP8cwDWT2LPC6lcA/view

15. Sheikh Othman (South Arabia) (Mission field of the Church of Scotland) (1890s? or 1900s?):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Church_of_Scotland_Mission_Fields,_late_19th_century_(imp-cswc-GB-237-CSWC47-LS2-001).jpg

16. British Zone of Influence in China (11 Feb 1898 - 1912?):

Source of map:

https://www.deviantart.com/tondoempireball/art/Spheres-of-Influence-in-China-1901-910968862

17. Hansi Rajanate (Sovereign state, unaffiliated with the United Kingdom, ruled independently by the Briton George Thomas) (1798 - 1801):

Source of map:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.281766/page/n119/mode/2up

18. Chumbi Valley (Formal British zone of occupation in the Great Qing) (7 Sep 1904 - 8 Feb 1908):

Source of map:

https://youtu.be/48wkBskmYnE?si=N34P_1tPkScfC15b

19. Alliance Island (Franco-British condominium colony) (2 Sep 1855 - 30 Mar 1856):

Source of map:

https://www.deviantart.com/lrtredgent/art/Map-of-all-french-possession-in-Asia-1106530233

20. Albion Island (Lost sand island) (19th century):

Source of map:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/s/MiM3V15aqm

21. Canadian Concession of Vimy Ridge (Concession of the Dominion of Canada in the French Republic; Granted for the free use of Their Majesties' Governments in Canada for all time) (1922 - 1940, 1945 - Present):

Source of map:

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/memorials/overseas/first-world-war/france/vimy/vimymap

22. Conway Reef (Annexed on 30 Jan 1965 to the Colony of Fiji, which was relinquished on 10 Oct 1970):

Source of map:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aneityum_1901_Nautical_Chart.jpg

23. Wrangel Island (Sole dominion of members of the Canadian Arctic Expedition (Jan - Sep 1914) and a private Canadian expedition to claim the island for Canada (1921-1923)) (Jan - Sep 1914, 1921 - 1923):

Source of map:

https://imgur.com/phDUNur

24. Republic of Angola (Applicant to the British Commonwealth) (2018 - Present):

Source of Map:

https://www.tumblr.com/w-r-pitt/779643631239839744/maps-of-twenty-five-obscure-british-colonial?source=share

25. Ottawa Civic Hospital Maternity Ward (Extraterritorial area for Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and any child that was born there, in the Dominion of Canada) (19 Jan 1943):

Source of map:

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=L_3NDwAAQBAJ

[for-valour]

London, 1914. King George V and Queen Mary at the Y.M.C.A., Great Russell Street. To the left of the King, a Mr. Vergo, Secretary General; to the far right, Lord Kinnaird, President of the Y.M.C.A.

OH YES and standing next to his mama, let’s not forget an adorable 18/19 year-old Prince Bertie! He looks so shy and awkward, what a heartbreaker 🥹

source: Bibliotheque Nationale de France

[shetheyshenanigans]

"It's so far away why do you care we have our own problems"

I fear all oppression is interconnected and none of us are free until we're all free <3

For example- Henry Tudor, the English police chief that created the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries in Ireland during the War of Independence, who was in charge of atrocities like the burnings of Cork and Balbriggan and the 1920 Blood Sunday massacre in Croke Park. He was also a close personal friend of Winston Churchill, who then appointed him as British commander in Palestine, when they were under British rule.

He recruited his beloved Black and Tans to join his new force, including Douglas Valder Duff, a former Black and Tan that enlisted in the army in British Palestine. He later wrote a memoir called Bailing With A Teaspoon, where he described his actions in Palestine, talking about attending torture sessions where Palestinians were beaten, water boarded and endured bastinado, which is a torture technique where people are beaten on the soles of their feet with a narrow cane. As far as he was concerned, "I am not holding up my hands in shocked protest....we were ready to benefit by information wrung.... from those wretched suspects."

For those of you who don't know Irish history, the Black and Tans was a name given to certain soldiers in the Royal Irish Constabulary, who were horrific as they were. Black and Tans were former British soldiers who were recruited into the RIC as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence. They were known as the Black and Tans because they wore a mix of RIC uniforms, which were black, and their British Army uniforms, which were khaki.

They carried out reprisals against the civilian population in revenge for IRA (Irish Republican Army) attacks against British targets, and those reprisals included the burning of homes and farmsteads, the looting of businesses, and the beating and killing of civilians. They once put Tralee under siege for a week, allowing no food in, closing all the businesses in town, and shooting three civilians dead.

Ireland was the test lab of the British Empire and tactics they used here were exported all over the world. That's why it's important to know your history, because colonialism wants the oppressed to be divided so they don't stand together.

If you get bogged down in deciding who's worth caring about, you'll care about no one.

[stivkun]

[mysharona1987]

[drmajalis]

The British Empire is collapsing before our eyes in real time <3

Critical support to Charles in his efforts to destroy the empire :) /s

[lgbtqtext]