How did this little island control so much of the world?

It's the biggest island in the Mediterranean, it's pretty big, England is huge for an island, it's basically the size of Italy

All of the benefits of being European but none of the drawbacks

>Also, unrestricted capitalism
*Mercantilism

And Italy isn't exactly what you'd call a large country either. When you control 1/4 of both the world's population and landmass as a country as small as that it's pretty amazing.

Rome was a single city and it controlled most of Europe and the Nearth East+North Africa

Rome was also the single greatest empire in human history

Funny way to spell the Mongol empire

Precisely because it was a little island.

Machine gunning niggers while the rest of Europe were killing themselves

>Allowing an East India Company monopoly from 1600 onwards
How can you be so deluded?

The Black Death culled the simpletons, leaving the country with nothing but top-tier intellects to take over the world.

Mostly through luck, mainly thanks to the easily available iron and coal kick-starting the Industrial Revolution.

England is a dreadful dreary place and this gave them much motivation to explore the world and escape to someplace better.

bump

The invention of the limited liability company is indisputably the root cause.

Gaelic genes

Being an island protected them from basically all the wars that suffered Europe.

They also only had to invest in navy to protect their country and interests, while the rest of Europe had to invest in army, navy....

And a foreign policy similar like a pirate warband.

Ireland was such a pity.

It still is.

>Mongol empire
Didnt last as long.

I've always thought this is a silly argument because you can't know how they would've performed if they weren't on an island. It's like saying Switzerland is only safe because it doesn't need a navy

It's a nice enough country and I'm impressed by the fact they managed to free themselves from us, but the UK with all of Ireland could have been much better.

NI is a humiliation.

If they were connected by land to France theycwould have needed a real army and not the joke that they had for an army. Hell they would not even be independent for that matter

The end of the Napoleonic wars shifting the balance of power massively in their favour

...

Britain is pretty much prime real-estate. You are surrounded by water, which is great from a defensive stand-point, but at the same time you're not too far from land so you can trade easily. Climate is conducive to agriculture.

I think agriculture is underrated, aside from fucking sheep farming it's nigh impossible to deplete the soil as its so fertile. britain could have always been an essentially self sufficient country in food, it was simply cheaper to import from the colonies so that's why they did. there wasn't so much pressure to keep them, hence why America was eventually forgotten about in favour of that sweet sub-continent sized opium plantation called India

The industrial revolution happened there first.

Before the middle ages Europe was a backwater, then during the middle ages innovations such as the heavy plow and 3 field crop rotation expanded agriculture. This region was exposed to Mediterranean trade and technology and later new naval technology and trade opened up the Atlantic, Baltic and North sea to this network.

This network stretching from Mesopotamia to Ireland rivalled China and India.

Within it a region of Europe encompassing, Northern Gerrmany, Southern England, the Netherlands and Northern France was particularly ideal as a center of manufacturing and commerce. A Flanders wool trade and the Hanseatic league, matching Italian trading city states, existed as early as the middle ages. A positive feedback loop between the economy and technological development emerged during the late middle ages.

The Netherlands was preyed upon by other European powers for centuries despite the Dutch renaissance. After the "glorious revolution" much business moved across the channel to London which was under less pressure thus Britain became the center of this economic region which was itself one of the most densely populated in Europe, though in tough competition from France. Perhaps this is why Louis XIV commented "I was too fond of war".

tl;dr being an island on the western european plain close to the mediterranean in the old world

Agriculture is the basis of civilization. If you don't have the ability to produce lots of food, you cannot produce a powerful civilization. Empire depends on having a surplus population which can be used to fight wars and start colonies. A large population depends on a large, stable food supply.

>fearsome mongols couldn't conquer India until the timurids came along
Also wtf France did the same but just focused on Europe so kept on losing land

>joke army
The English had superior officers and horses but just less men because no conscription

Yes, and if they needed a real army they would've built one so in this hypothetical you have no idea how it would've turned out

>and not the joke that they had for an army.
Their army was small but extremely well trained.

>Ill just send the policemen to arrest them then

No one mentions the Act Of Union

dumb burgers

The English ay was garbage that relied on German mercenaries. Even at the peak of the Brittish empire they needed the help of France to do any action on Crimea.
And always performed like trash with a rifle

If there was no border between France and Britain a country like England would have never been formed in the first place and even if it formed they would be forced to have a real army so they would have never had a massive fleet

>t. pulled out of my asshole

Why would England be created if it was attached to France? It would just be a bigger Normandy

despite that they always fucked the french lmao

-because the Industrial Revolution started there

-And because France fucked itself with the French Revolution.

Before the French Revolution, Spain and France were close allies, both with Bourbon kings (it was called the family pact), and their combined navies could match that of England. In fact they won in the American war of Independence, making England lose most of its empire.

The French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars did a tremendous damage to both France and Spain, and left England as a superpower with no rivals until the German unification.
France destroyed its navy (most captains were nobles), endured decades of constant war, ended up losing hundreds of thousands of men both in Spain and Russia (for them it was comparable to a world war), lost its old status as most populated European country (by the end of the XIX century the UK, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary had bigger populations than France).
Spain lost its colonial empire, had te country ravaged during the Peninsular war, and pretty much didnt recover until the 1960s due to having civil wars between republicans and monarchistd every few year, the last one being the one in which Franco won.

Powerful navy and motivated businessmen/missionaries/governmental authorities

This is the greatest question in human history and every answer will offend someone.
The suggestion that it was racial superiority is calcifying in my mind though. Most other explanations can be readily described as symptoms of this.
common interpretations exclude the possibility of racial superiority include:

>The UK has great quality coal in abundance compared to the rest of the world (they don't) which facilitated industrialization.
>Lucky spawn (small island on the shit side of Europe [historically less civilized] famous for it's bad weather). While the soil is fertile, an abundance of coal and/or grain would not guarantee the inevitable publication of Principia Mathematica or that your nation will produce the unsurpassed caliber of genius born to GB.
>Superior waterways (being brain dead helps for this one).

All geographic/environmental arguments are ridiculous, the exceptional thing about the UK's history has always been it's inhabitants.

>Normans managed to invade from France in the 11th century.
>Danes managed to invade from further afield prior to that.
>English Channel is one of the most frequented shipping lanes int he world.
>People have literally swam it.

Why do people pretend it's some enchanted barrier that protected the helpless anglos (kek) from the indomitable french (KEK!).
The English and later the British invested very heavily in their navy and this was obviously the right thing to do.
Prioritizing sailors and marines over soldiers was genius, the UK could then focus on a strong economy rather than a strong standing army and well would you look at that! The greatest general the continent ever produced surrendered to the crown not once but twice!

Racial superiority

>How did this little island control so much of the world?
Overabundance of warm-water ports and lack of existential threats due to it's convenient geography.

I don't want to make blasphemy, but there's much on the notion that God is an Englishman, given to the state of historical record.

It was their exceptional system of law.

You, like many, have overrated their dominion.

Let's start with Canada and Australia. Two barren wastelands in most of the territory, compared to even Tibet and Turkmenistan. And not the center of any major civilization.

Next we have Africa. The borders of their Empire here were literal lines drawn on the map by various diplomats in the so-called Great Scramble. How can this land be considered when the British were still exploring it in the 70s after their empire fell? Egypt was 'officially' claimed out of sensitivity over the Suez Canal. Only the small parts actually colonized can be considered.

Then we have the crown jewel, India. Half of this "Empire" literally had native nobility in power the whole time. They only took control militarily in 1868.

Finally, Iraq, which they kept for 10 years and is also half desert.

...

"Bigger" is a tremendous understatement. You don't even know if there'd be a France or a Normandy in the first place in this timeline. It actually comes back to my original point about how it's a meaningless question.

...

>Half of this "Empire" literally had native nobility in power the whole time.
What do you think an empire is?

The moon is made entire of fiber optics cameras

Perfidy

What would happen if Bongistan was attached to Europe?

No one knows because it changes too much

>if [...] was attached
ever heard of Doggerland?
this

The pope may be French, but Jesus is English.

under rated post

their army was for the better part of their existence composed of the dregs, and the criminals

>two barren wastelands

>10th and 13th largest economies in the world

OP. part of it is the population explosion of the agricultural and industrial revolutions and its timing relative to other countries. There are about 10,000 reasons why Britain did so well though, it can't be pinned on one thing.

As opposed to what other armies on the continent? Britain had a professional army very early in the NMA.

It was a melting pot of european races, normans, danes etc

looks pretty big to me

>it can't be pinned on one thing
No but some things stand out.
Expansion of interest free credit through the bank of England and the expertise in plying oceans were important. And of course here we all are, shitposting in Engrish.

early adoption of industrialization, and a lack of scruples

none of the following
>treating differences in society, law and economic policy as causes not effects
>treating colonialism as a component of the economy
>genetic/cultural superiority
>Britain is the only place on earth with coal and iron

>The suggestion that it was racial superiority is calcifying in my mind though
UK's main success was India, but that was only possible due to the civil war the country was in and not to mention they lost three wars before conquering Bengal(which was again,weakened due to war) It was never about """racially superiority"""

but opium wasn't illegal at the time.

*Capitalism
We moved fully to free trade ideals after the successes of entrepots like Singapore and Ireland being used as an economic experiment.

Bump and god bless the queen

Britain is not "little".
The answer is that the Channel protected them from the french and in consequence they invested most of their defence budget in the navy.
The fact they were limited in options to expand (outside of France against who they lost all their territories on the continent through the centuries) made them turn toward the colonial game were they were pretty successful thanks to very good leadership.

English were notoriously shit on the ground after the Middle Age.
Best example of that is Waterloo which is still celebrated as a british victory despite the fact that only 1/3 of Wellington forces were actually british and Blücher saved their asses.

England lost all its territories to the french during the two Hundred Years' Wars.
Also England was conquered by the french while the opposite never happened.

England was never conquered by the French. On the other hand, about 2/3rds of France were ruled from England. Over the course of history, English forces have repeatedly defeated numerically larger French armies. The French simply aren't very good at fighting the English.

>English were notoriously shit on the ground after the Middle Age.
>Best example of that is Waterloo
There was a good thread the other day where a poster made the argument with reference to literature that British infantry through the long 18th century and particularly in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic of very good quality, long training periods with more live fire drills than continental infantry, however they did lack strategic speed.

>how did Rome control so much of the world?
>how did some steppe nomads control so much of the world?
>how did some literal who boy king conquer all the way to india?

>Allowing an East India Company monopoly from 1600 onwards
i thought the french were slightly relevant until the seven years war m8

The BEIC was not even more relevant than the VOC

Yeah, quality-wise they were pretty good, but always too small in relation to other great powers and their contribution to successfull wars was often blown out of proportion by anglo-centric historians.

>The company was also considered by many to be the very first major and the most successful corporation in history.[note 5][9][10][11][12][13] Statistically, the VOC eclipsed all of its rivals in international trade for almost 200 years of existence.[14][15] Between 1602 and 1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships, and netted for their efforts more than 2.5 million tons of Asian trade goods. By contrast, the rest of Europe combined sent only 882,412 people from 1500 to 1795, and the fleet of the English (later British) East India Company, the VOC's nearest competitor, was a distant second to its total traffic with 2,690 ships and a mere one-fifth the tonnage of goods carried by the VOC.
English delusion is just so sweet.They are taught that they are hot shit at school while in reality they always were a big pile of mediocrity

>muh economic determinism

top plen

Starting on an island allows you to tech safely into an early wonder or religion.

>They are taught that they are hot shit at school
No one is taught this at school. Where do you even get these delusional ideas from? Education on Britain at school pretty much covers the Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and maybe William Wilberforce and the evils of slavery. You're more likely to learn about the American Civil War than you are to learn about Britain

because niggers

simple superiority