Before the First World War

Abstract

In the fifty or so years after 1815 Great Britain was the most powerful state in Europe and indeed in the world, for she was the first power to be in a position to influence events in all five continents, or at any rate along their coasts, through her unchallenged command of the sea. As a result, she dominated world trade and finance and consequently acquired a larger overseas colonial empire than any other nation before or since. There were, however, limitations to this impressive achievement. She had a very small army in comparison with her continental neighbours, and never sought to emulate seventeenth-century Hapsburg Spain or eighteenth-century France by dominating the mainland of Europe. Instead she aimed to maintain a balance of power in Europe under which any power or coalition of powers which sought to dominate the Continent would be thwarted by an alliance between Britain and the remainder. In practice it must be admitted that this policy was only occasionally supported by active diplomacy and for long periods throughout the nineteenth century the British managed to ignore European events and concentrated instead on expanding their interests overseas. Thus major events such as the reunification of Germany and of Italy took place with Britain as a relatively passive onlooker. It is true that Britain played a leading part in forcing the Turkish retreat from Europe when with the support of allies she used her fleet to defeat the Turks at Navarino in 1827, but the Crimean War showed the limitations of seapower against a major land power such as Russia.