The British Isles have a rich history going back thousands of years. Unfortunately few of us in Britain really know much about our history. Retrospectively I think there must have been something radically flawed with history as it is taught in out schools as our history is fascinating.
For this history guide, we shall divide the period of British history into four main chunks, and each of these four main chunks then subdivided into bite sized chapters that try to explain the way that things happened.
History is an interweaving of events and people, and its not just about kings and queens, its about ordinary people and how events influenced them, and on occasions how they influenced events.
Also one has to realise that Britain is not one nation, but a hedge podge of different peoples who tend to remain distinct in spite of a millenium or more of intermarriage. I have therefore put in separate chapters on Ireland, Scotland and Wales, each with its own history.
The First World War 1914 to 1918
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Bosnia. Within weeks the whole of Europe was at war. The Austrians blamed the Serbs and declared war on Serbia. Russia was allied to the Serbs, Germany to Austria, France top Russia and Britain to France. 750,000 Britons died in the next 4 years of trench warfare. This was the first war Britain had fought on European soil since Waterloo closer on a century before. German hopes of a quick victory by a rapid advance on Paris were dashed at the battle of the Marne in September 1914. The Germans dug in, the French & British dug in and the stalemate on the Western Front was about to begin.
Tens of thousands of men died as they were ordered vainly to attack well dug in enemy troops. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, 19,000 British troops were killed in a day. And 400,000 Allies were killed or wounded at the Somme.
Stalemate continued at sea as well as on land. The battle of Jutland, the only major sea battle of the war, took place in the North Sea in 1916. The result was inconclusive
It was only in 1918 that the Allies, with the Americans now in the war, began to make advances. A better battle plan and the use of the new tanks gave the Allies the breakthrough that they had been seeking for years. Within three months the war was over
Altogether over 8 million soldiers on both sides had died. New weapons like the tank, poison gas, and the aircraft had entered wars. Cavalry were no longer used. Air raids and U-boat attacks on merchant ships brought war to the civilian population as well as to the combatants. However the war did not create a “land fit for heroes to live in“ as the war time prime minister had promised. Britain was to enter an era of social change, economic recession and large scale unemployment.
The working class became unionised, and labour relations deteriorated. The culmination was the General Strike in May 1926, when some 2 million key workers went on strike over plans to reduce wages and lengthen working hours. The General Strike itself failed, but it did make trades unionists realise that they could not lead British workers into a class war, b8ut that the process of winning at the ballot box would give them real power to change the country
In the 1930’s Britain was focused on the continuing high unemployment at home. Then there was the shock of the abdication of Edward VIII who wished to marry an American divorcee in 1936.
Few saw the threat of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. Germany was re-arming at a frightening rate, but Britain had neither the inclination nor the money to follow Hitler’s increased spending on armaments.
Eventually Hitler’s expansion went too far. The German invasion of Poland led Britain by treaty to declare war on Germany. In 1939 World War II started.
The British Army in Europe soon lost to the Germans, who quickly conquered most of continental Europe. After the evacuation of the British troops from Dunkirk in France back to England in 1940, Britain stood alone against Hitler. Germany tried to conquer Britain by first gaining air supremacy. However the Germans lost the Battle of Britain, the first battle to be fought solely in the air.
Hitler then tried bombing Britain into submission, but failed thee to. Further afield the British 8th Army was on the retreat in North Africa, and Britain had lost to the Japanese in the Far East, with Singapore and Malaya falling the Japs were at the gates of India. At sea German U-Boats had sunk nearly 8 million tons of allied ships in 1942.With the eventual American entry into the war, following Pearl Harbour, Britain gained vital reinforcements in men and supplies. The German and Japanese supply lines were at full stretch, and eventually a string of victories forced the enemy to retreat. Victory at Alamein led eventually to the Germans being driven from North Africa, and the invasion
The planned invasion of France by the allies took place in June 1944, fighting their way out from the bridgehead beaches was a bloody affair, but eventually they did, and within a year World War II was over, and Europe lay in ruins.
Britain loses an Empire and seeks a new role in the world