History of the White Race

CHAPTER 28 : THE SCEPTERED ISLE - ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM

With the union of Scotland and England in 1707, the United Kingdom of Great Britain (which included Wales) was created, a political entity which was then to dominate huge stretches of the world and to play a formative role in shaping much of the character of the New Worlds in North America, Australia and New Zealand.

The name "Great Britain" in fact dates from the time when Britain possessed parts of north western France - the province around Calais was known as "Little Britain" and the British island itself as "Great Britain".

By the time of the creation of the Union, the English had, along with the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch, been leading the way in exploring the new world and in establishing colonies in the new lands. The opportunities afforded by new lands saw many hundreds of thousands of Scots, Welsh and English emigrate, principally to North America but then also later to Australia and New Zealand.

The first act of the new union was to make peace with the French, bringing to an end one of the endless string of wars between those two countries. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which ended the War of Spanish Secession, saw Britain gave up trying to prevent a Bourbon (French) king from taking the Spanish throne.

In return, France ceded to Britain the North American areas of Hudson Bay, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. For its part, Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain and granted to British merchants a limited right to trade with Spain's American colonies, including the "asiento" - the right to import Black slaves into Spanish America.

The first monarch of the new union, Queen Anne, died childless. In terms of the Act of Settlement, her nearest Protestant relative was offered the crown - in this way the elector of Hanover in Germany, became King George I of Britain in 1714. The British Royal family have thus ever since, actually been German.

The arrival of the German kings coincided with two decades of relative peace and development. Slowly the embryonic forms of a democratic government were created, with the right to vote being very gradually extended and the Conservative and Liberal Parties coming into being as the main contenders for political office.

By 1739, however, Britain was once again at war - first with Spain and then against a combined French and Prussian alliance which had attacked the then British ally, Austria. As a result of the latter war, Austrian War of Secession, Britain and France fought at sea, in North America and India.

In 1745, a grouping of Scottish nationalists, taking advantage of Britain's involvement in the continental wars, launched a last attempt to place a Stuart back on the throne - Prince Charles Edward ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") landed in Scotland, won the allegiance of thousands of Scottish highlanders.

He captured Edinburgh and proclaimed his father King James III. Marching south with his army, he came within a hundred miles of London, but failed to attract many English supporters. In December he retreated to Scotland, was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and fled into exile in France.

In 1756, war on the continent broke out once again, pitting Britain, this time allied with Russia, against France, who was this time allied with Austria, in the Seven Years' War.

The French fleet was defeated off the coast of Portugal and the English East India Company triumphed over its French counterpart in India, setting the stage for the eventual occupation of almost all of that subcontinent by the British. In North America, British troops captured large slices of French Canada.

By the end of the war Britain had succeeded in extending the borders of its colonies substantially, in India and in North America. Spain, which had entered the war on the French side in 1762, ceded Florida to Britain: the Treaty of Paris saw Britain's empire at its territorial height.

By the year 1801, the official census showed a British population of 16 million: by 1851 it showed a population of 27 million.

The dramatic growth in population marked the influence of the Industrial Revolution and served as a major driver for the colonial expansion process.

By 1780, the Scottish scientist James Watt had perfected the steam engine. Suddenly mechanization on a massive scale was possible, with further new inventions seeing spinning, weaving and clothing production rocket.

The Industrial Revolution had, by 1830, turned Britain into the foremost industrial power in the world, producing many of the great innovations which were to revolutionize the world. (The saga of the inventors and their influence is reviewed in another chapter). The Industrial Revolution did not produce all positive effects, though. Unscrupulous capitalists exploited labor pitilessly. Children were used as laborers for inhumanely long hours and dangerous work; and frightful slums sprang up in many British cities and towns.

London had a population of 2.5 million in 1851, making it the largest city in the world, an indication of the scale of the urbanization which had taken place.

By 1779, Britain had however lost its most important colonial possession - the United States of America had won its independence in a three year war with the British government. The loss of America allowed the French (1778), the Spanish (1779), and the Dutch (1780) to join the anti-British war effort, creating an isolation which was only ended when Britain recognized the independence of the American colonies in 1783.

The advent of the prime ministership of William Pitt the younger (so called because of his youth) saw a period of political reform initiated. This was just in time, and doubtless played a major role in preventing the ideals of the French Revolution from spilling over into Britain.

However, the outbreak of European wide hostilities, first with the French revolutionary government and then with Napoleon Bonaparte (already recounted) ended with the extinguishing of the more radical ideas of the French revolution - although they had for the greatest part been taken from the American revolution. Post Napoleonic War Britain suffered from economic depression and social unrest: the after effects of the Industrial Revolution were beginning to be felt with the creation of an urban underclass who were permanently locked into working class status.

Attempts to diffuse the growing social unrest led to a series of reforms in the 1830s. These included laws extending the franchise and the limitation on working hours and the use of children in factories as labor. Numerous other social ills were addressed at the same time.

In 1837, the 18 year old Queen Victoria took the throne. Becoming one of the longest reigning British monarchs, Victoria oversaw a renewed growth in the British Empire and the reformation of the political system.

The White Empress of India. Queen Victoria , the longest reigning British monarch (reigned 1837 -1901) was declared Empress of India in 1876. This imposing statue was erected in Calcutta, long the capital of British India.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London symbolized Britain's industrial supremacy. The British railways - Britain was the home of the train - led the rest of the world for its sophistication: the telegraph provided instant communication; inexpensive steel was made possible by Henry Bessemer's process, developed in 1856, and the first large scale production of steamships, which dramatically reduced intercontinental sailing times, was started in the 1860s.

Politics in Victorian Britain became dominated by the liberal party under William Gladstone and the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli, who traded places as prime minister and opposition leader twice during their long careers.

Disraeli was a Christianized Jew whose writings on race were profound: they are however ignored by modern historians. In his book Tancred, published by Frederick Warne, London, in 1868, Disraeli wrote:

"No man will treat with indifference the principle of race. It is the key to history and why history is so often confused is that it has been written by men who were ignorant of this principle and all the knowledge it involves . . . Language and religion do not make a race - there is only one thing which makes a race, and that is blood" (page 249-250).

Disraeli led British expansion during his time as prime minister - in 1875 Britain gained effective control over Egypt through a protectorate over the newly built Suez canal linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; in 1876 he had Victoria declared Empress of India; and in 1876 he annexed the Boer Republic of the Transvaal, an act which would later spark off the First Anglo-Boer War.

Victorian England was however not all progress: the country paid the price for its massive industrialization with the creation of urban slums. Millions of Britons fled the country as a result, and emigration to the colonies resulted - more than 200,000 per year during the 1880s alone. Most went to North America, although a considerable proportion went to Australia and New Zealand as well. Despite this, the population of Britain continued to increase to almost 41 million by 1911.

Relations between Germany and Britain were close prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The British royal house was originally German and the outbreak of war was in reality surprising to all (some members of the British royal family then changed their name from the German Battenberg to Mount Batten, a literal English translation).

Nonetheless, by 1914, an alliance of Britain, France and Russia had been created to counter an alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey - The Triple Alliance.

Under the provisions of the alliance, the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Germany caused the French and the British to declare war on Germany. A British expeditionary force was sent to France to fight on the Western Front. Here they suffered fearful losses in protracted trench warfare which followed, although the war finally resulted in an Allied victory.

Domestically the British had however faced an uprising in Easter 1916 by the Irish and the economy had been wrecked by the progress of the war. This was aggravated by the Great Depression of 1929.

The Treaty of Versailles which ended the war saw the British Empire enlarge once again with the addition of the former German colonies in Africa and Turkish holdings in the Middle East - including Palestine, all territories which became British mandates.

The acquisition of Palestine by the British from the Turks was of particular significance, for the World Zionist Congress had extracted an undertaking from the British government in 1917 that it would work for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine in return for World Jewry supporting the Allied cause against Germany and Turkey.

This undertaking became know as the Balfour Declaration, after the British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour who made the public announcement.

At the end of the war, the British also addressed the issue of Irish independence. The latter, having waged a long running guerrilla war, finally succeeded in securing the independence of all but six counties (which became the British province of Northern Ireland) in 1921.

Much like the first, Britain did not welcome the outbreak of the Second World War. When Germany overran all of continental Europe, Britain was left as the only significant power in Europe not to have been beaten by Germany. The exploits of the Royal Air Force in managing to stave off a desultory German air offensive became legendary, with the famous Spitfire fighter playing a major role in the successful air defense of Britain. After several bombing attacks on German cities by Royal Airforce bomber fleets, Germany retaliated by launching a full scale bombing attack on the major British cities. The resulting Blitz and V1 and V2 rocket attacks saw 60,000 British civilian deaths and the destruction of many cities.

Ultimately, and mainly thanks to American industrial power, Germany was defeated, and Britain became one of the victorious Allied powers who occupied what was left of Germany.

This wartime poster of Winston Churchill as a British Bulldog defiantly resisting Germany following the defeat of France in 1940, may have been a media creation, but it does summarize the British spirit during the early days of World War II when German victory did seem inevitable.

Churchill (1874-1965) is possibly one of Great Britain's best known 20th-century statesman, mainly as a result of his leadership of that country during World War Two. Churchill's career spanned however much more than just World War Two. Graduating from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, he served in the British army in India and the Sudan before resigning his commission in 1899 to become a correspondent during the Anglo-Boer War. Captured by the Boers, he made a daring escape from a temporary prison in central Pretoria, and became a celebrity in Britain as a result. He used this sudden popularity to be elected to parliament for the first time in 1900. Although elected as a Conservative, he switched to the Liberal Party in 1904, serving in the Liberal Party cabinet from 1908 to 1915, ending as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Churchill's role in World War I was controversial and almost destroyed his career. Naval problems and his support of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign forced his resignation from the Admiralty. Following service as a battalion commander in France, he joined Lloyd George's coalition cabinet, and from 1917 to 1922 he served in a number of posts, including minister of munitions and secretary for war. In 1922 the Liberal Party lost power and Churchill was re-elected to parliament as a Conservative in 1924.

His opposition to granting self rule to India and personal clashes with the leadership of the Conservative Party ensured that he was denied cabinet positions until 1939. He was elected prime minister on 10 May 1940. It was at this time that he made most of his most famous speeches, calling upon his countrymen to resist the Germans even though they stood alone. (A dark side to this aspect of his life emerged when it later transpired that some of the more famous speeches on the radio had in fact been recorded by a 'voice double', Norman Shelly, notably once when Churchill was too inebriated to make the speech himself). He succeeded in ensuring American aid and when Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, he maneuvered Britain into supporting the Communist giant, against his earlier principles. By 1945 he was admired throughout the world, his reputation disguising the fact that Britain's military role in the war was secondary to that of the United States.

Despite his international appeal, at home he was swept away by the first election after war, and replaced with a Labor Party government. Churchill coined the phrase 'Iron Curtain' during a speech in America in 1946, when he warned of the dangers of Soviet expansion. He was re-elected to the prime ministership of Britain from 1951 to 1955, but advancing age and poor health prevented him from providing dynamic leadership. Resigning in 1955, Churchill devoted his last years to painting and writing. He died on January 24, 1965, at the age of 90.

Immediately after the war, Britain elected an overtly socialist Labor government which shaped the face of modern British society by creating the social welfare system and by creating a number of state controlled institutions such as the nationalized health service, the nationalized coal industry and a host of other similar state enterprises. These would only be dismantled by the government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

The end of the war also saw the dissolution of the British Empire: independence was granted to India and Pakistan in 1947 - to Burma and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1948 and then a wave of African possessions followed, all eventually joining together in what became known as the Commonwealth.

Although Britain lost virtually all of its colonies, it still retained its symbolic role as leader of the Commonwealth. Britain also retained a leading role in world affairs, based mainly on the glory of its past.

The most important feature of post World War Two Britain has however been the large immigration into that country from the Third World, a process which showed no signs of slowing down during the last quarter of the 20th Century. This process and its implications are discussed in a another chapter.