Where did the British military/empire attitudes originate?

[jsmoke]

We all came from somewhere etc. I was speaking to someone about where the British elites attitudes originated, for example all the militaries giants over the last 1000 years or so. If we were once rag tag savages of sorts living off the land at at what point did we start breeding people to the caliber that we've seen in the past and present.

Basically a history of the British empire. Who started it all was it Vikings, Romans, Angles, Celts, Normans etc. Did one man come in and transform everything, was it to do with the reformation or the school system, the universities, and if so who started it all. What's the story.

 

[Mr Badger]

We all came from somewhere etc. I was speaking to someone about where the British elites attitudes originated, for example all the militaries giants over the last 1000 years or so. If we were once rag tag savages of sorts living off the land at at what point did we start breeding people to the caliber that we've seen in the past and present.

Basically a history of the British empire. Who started it all was it Vikings, Romans, Angles, Celts, Normans etc. Did one man come in and transform everything, was it to do with the reformation or the school system, the universities, and if so who started it all. What's the story.

Plenty of good history channels on YouTube. Search for something along the lines of "simple history of the British empire" and go from there.

 

[ttaskmaster]

If we were once rag tag savages of sorts living off the land at at what point did we start breeding people to the caliber that we've seen in the past and present.

Successful leadership of a tribe requires certain characteristics. If the children of the leaders of two successful tribes breed, then their offspring ought to have double the characteristics.
Thus was born the concept, in various places around the world.
From there it eventually became all about being born to the right families, in the right places, going to the right schools, mixing with the right people, and all that elitist stuff.

Next question?

 

[Diddums]

Love a good jsmoke thread, and it's Friday to boot.

Happy Friday you goons

 

[413x]

Owning the seas basically I believe is a big factor of the empire.
Getting to industrial revolution first.

Attack someone with a frigate who has a raft and constantly drop troops on thier shore with no chance of the same to you is a biggy.

My favourite history is king Arthur and next few centuries. I don't actually know much about 1400ish onwards

 

[Lysander]

Before 43 AD the country was little other than a bunch of tribes. But they were far from savages, just look at some of the beautiful things that were produced. Then in 43AD the Romans invaded and that was the start of Britain being a part of someone else's empire. The Vikings invaded in the 8th century, I think, and we spent many years fighting with them - at this point England was divided into separate kingdoms, nothing like the unified England you know now.

The colonial empire, I think, was started under Elizabeth I. That's when we started going to other countries and wiping out their natives and claiming the territory, and the people, for our own. As to why we did it, I think there was little other reason than "because we could".

 

[jsmoke]

Successful leadership of a tribe requires certain characteristics. If the children of the leaders of two successful tribes breed, then their offspring ought to have double the characteristics.
Thus was born the concept, in various places around the world.
From there it eventually became all about being born to the right families, in the right places, going to the right schools, mixing with the right people, and all that elitist stuff.

Next question?

That's pure evolution, no divine intervention?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Every empire over the world gets to a stage they find a need to conquest others for resources, for land, for slaves, for ego; Romans, Vikings, Mongolians, French, Spanish, Nazi Germany and the Japanese in the 20th century all over the world and time. Almost everyone has done it, some more success than others. Even the US, although at the time they were just Europeans settlers in North America, swept across the land and took it away from the American Indians, land from Mexico, Hawaii and some Pacific islands.

 

[Lysander]

That's pure evolution, no divine intervention?

It's no different to what we do with dogs and cattle.

I have a fish tank. When I turn their light on in the evening and feed them I'm pretty sure they look at me as their god.

 

[Nasher]

It the legacy of the Roman empire and then the Normans/Viking. War was their way of life and it isnt fully bred out yet.

Maybe it will happen with the flake generation

 

[Lysander]

No-one's really answered the OP's question though, about where the imperialist attitude comes from. It harks back to Britain being an immense, glorious world superpower in the 19th century. We were then left in tatters by the first, but particularly the second world war, even though we were victorious.

It's quite normal for countries to look back at the glory days of their empires with nostalgia, because they accomplished great things. Italy still revels in its Roman history, Turkey in its Ottoman history, the same with us. But it's important to see it for what it was: we shouldn't look to return to those days because they were so destructive, and such destruction was necessary in order for the accomplishments achieved. Now the conquest has just moved online, with Google being the current world superpower that we all defer to, with data and privacy being its captors.

 

[Pudney]

No-one's really answered the OP's question though, about where the imperialist attitude comes from. It harks back to Britain being an immense, glorious world superpower in the 19th century. We were then left in tatters by the first, but particularly the second world war, even though we were victorious.

It's quite normal for countries to look back at the glory days of their empires with nostalgia, because they accomplished great things. Italy still revels in its Roman history, Turkey in its Ottoman history, the same with us. But it's important to see it for what it was: we shouldn't look to return to those days because they were so destructive, and such destruction was necessary in order for the accomplishments achieved. Now the conquest has just moved online, with Google being the current world superpower that we all defer to, with data and privacy being its captors.

Pretty sure the imperialist attitude was a result of competition between Europeans to be the first to take control of land and peoples overseas. It's why the period in question is sometimes called the Age of Imperialism.

 

[ttaskmaster]

That's pure evolution, no divine intervention?

None that I'm aware of... Perhaps you confuse me with someone more religious?
"The gods will do nothing for us that we will not do for ourselves".

Every empire has had an attitude of superiority and the belief that they should gift that superiority to all the heathen natives they subsequently conquer. I mean, who wouldn't want to be part of the greatest nation on the planet?
Roman empire, various Caliphates, the Mongol empire, the Spanish empire, the Portuguese empire, the British empire, and currently the American empire... all had that same attitude.
It's just progress.

 

[Lysander]

Pretty sure the imperialist attitude was a result of competition between Europeans to be the first to take control of land and peoples overseas. It's why the period in question is sometimes called the Age of Imperialism.

Sorry, I was particularly referring to the "imperial century", which is commonly what the 19th century is referred to in this context. But yes, you're also right.

 

[Hades]

Power and influence is a natural human trait to gain sexual advantage. The strongest person in a family becomes the head and can then choose their partner from the whole population. The strongest person in a village becomes the head. The strongest person in an area then became their local ruler. Then we had regional kings which eventually merged into a single king of England. At that point it's important for the King to keep trying to take other people's land and resources otherwise that country will do the same to him. It is simply built into all humans to try to compete.

All countries were trying to do the same. England was no different to others. But several key events happened in England for us to become the dominant power at the time:

Location - Being an island gave us a degree of stability and protection not available on larger land masses. This gave us time to build up without a lot of instability. We did have some incursions and attacks but relatively few compared to the open nature of a large continent. Being a fairly cold and inhospitable place gave us the challenges needed to become an inventive nation. But the lack of very severe weather and lack of earthquakes gave us enough time to develop without huge crises suffered in some countries. It was a great location.
New Model Army - We were one of the first nation to really create a proper professional army (EDIT: others such as the Romans did too).
Navy - Because of our location we were able to create a strong navy to conquer other lands.
Privateers - From Sir Francis Drake to the East India Company we encouraged privateers to invade land in our name. Much of India was at one point largely owned by a private company.
Resources - Despite being a small country we had easily accessible resources of tin for tool production and wood and coal for energy.
The Industrial Revolution - Simply put, we got there first. We advanced technology faster than other countries. This was probably due to the already mentioned factors. For example China took longer to industrialise than England because they could not easily transport their coal reserves from the centre of the country to their coastal regions because the Yangtze river had several hard to navigate rapids.

 

[MentalSharps]

I believe our Monarchy traces itself back to Odin. So quite some time ago!

 

[Efour]

British Navy, Henry the 8th + Elizabeth 1st. systematization and standardization of the navy and industrialisation.
Ships control trade routes and we controlled the entire seas. for years.
Breaking away for the Catholic church. Complete freedom from its domination. (Brexit mk.1)
Excellent climate.
Britain was a great place.

 

[BowdonUK]

I think a lot of the British empire attitudes come from the Roman empire.

The whole class system seems to have been changed slightly in to a British version, were one person is better than another, or certain people can't vote.

I follow a lot of politics and its interesting to go back in history to some of the MP's listed in the books. At some point they all seemed to be titled people and a lot seem to be French.

 

[ianh]

The Education system first and foremost would be my best guess.

We were probably in the best 3 countries in the world for education if not the top one (Vatican must be also that group), and by education I mean for the elite to get University level studies (even Knights back the old days etc) then further their education post University etc over the last 400 years.

 

[Fusion]

Watch Simon Schama's History of Britain, explains things brilliantly.