What were the worst events in the British Empire?

[weltweit]

For many the empire is or was a great national achievement of the times, and when the world was pink was a great feat of national endeavour especially for such a small nation. But there are many who would argue that it included horrible excesses and cruelty.

What I am after in this thread is the awful things that Britain did in or around these periods of history, what did Britain do for which it should be wholly ashamed?

 

[Lock&Light]

The Massacre at Amritsar must be one of the many examples.

 

[weltweit]

Of a similar time, was the landing of Britons on Australia. Australia was declared, despite the existance of the aboriginals, to be uninhabited. So the landing forces were permitted to treat the aboriginals as if they were animals. Experiments were done to see how long an aboriginal would survive if their limbs were amputated, if their genitals were cut off and so forth. Surely an awful moment in British history.

 

[krtek a houby]

Being part of the slavery trade, the whole debacle in Ireland. That kind of thing.

 

[Yossarian]

 

[weltweit]

The Massacre at Amritsar must be one of the many examples.

Am I right in assuming that is the same as this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

 

[DotCommunist]

Operation Storm

 

[weltweit]

Just found an interesting timeline on wikepedia :

1 Origins (1497–1583)
1.1 Plantations of Ireland
2 "First British Empire" (1583–1783)
2.1 Americas, Africa and the slave trade
2.2 Rivalry with the Netherlands in Asia
2.3 Global struggles with France
3 Rise of the "Second British Empire" (1783–1815)
3.1 Company rule in India
3.2 Loss of the Thirteen American Colonies
3.3 Exploration of the Pacific
3.4 War with Napoleonic France
3.5 Abolition of slavery
4 Britain's imperial century (1815–1914)
4.1 East India Company in Asia
4.2 Rivalry with Russia
4.3 Cape to Cairo
4.4 Changing status of the white colonies
5 World wars (1914–1945)
5.1 First World War
5.2 Inter-war period
5.3 Second World War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire

 

[Lock&Light]

Am I right in assuming that is the same as this?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

Yes

 

[Stigmata]

Hard to top that really.

I'd suggest the repression of the Mau Mau uprising, which was not objectively the worst thing, but is made worse by the fact that it happened in living memory.

 

[danny la rouge]

Spreading cricket.

 

[trabuquera]

if you're talking numbers of dead, it's the Bengal Famine I believe (which, happening as it did in the mid 1940s, wasn't even so early the excuses that "the mentality was different then" or "London just didn't know what abuses were being committed in its name" could be applied.)

Culturally, the looting of the Chinese Imperial Gardens or the Benin royal courts were pretty messed up, for sure.

it's a bit of a tacky question really ... the British Empire did so much that was bad - on so many levels - it's hard to go around grading the very Worst of the Bad Bits. (also, there are some who might argue, the whole approach of branding the sweep of history as "a Bad Thing" or "a Good Thing" is stupidly simplistic. Certainly the British Empire did plenty of wrong and has messed the world up for generations afterwards. But not all of its intentions were Dr-Evil-style racist/greedy/vicious, and some of its 'achievements' (railways and mission schools anyone?) were essential to fomenting the next generation of anticolonial change and revolutionaries who'd end up abolishing the Empire itself).

 

[DotCommunist]

Campaign in the Baltic

 

[Santino]

Not spreading cricket enough.

 

[toblerone3]

In purely numerical terms the Second World War must have been the worst - 20 million plus died.

 

[bi0boy]

In purely numerical terms the Second World War must have been the worst - 20 million plus died.

Yeah the Battle of Stalingrad has to be among the worst atrocities of the British Empire.

 

[Pseudopsycho]

Spreading cricket.

Spreading football

 

[Ax^]

nothing about mismanaging the Irish agriculture industry in the 1800's interesting

 

[weltweit]

Yes, I agree that the slave trade was certainly a significant low.

I am just reading up a bit on it at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

The shippers were, in order of scale, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and Americans.

Current estimates are that about 12 million were shipped across the Atlantic,[2] although the actual number of people taken from their homes is considerably higher.[3][4][5]

At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea, another four million[19] through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean."[20]

 

[Santino]

nothing about mismanaging the Irish agriculture industry in the 1800's interesting

Not at all interesting in a thread of 18 posts and in which some contributors are just dicking around.

 

[weltweit]

Note, 12 million is the estimate of how many slaves were taken from Africa via the transatlantic route to the Americas by all countries, not just by Britain. The mention of slavery to the muslim countries is extra and different to the transatlantic trade.

 

[weltweit]

There was a slaughter of British people, men women and children, in Afghanistan wasn't there? I know that is British people being killed so you might think it would not count for this thread but I think it counts as a low point.

Aha .. found out something about it
http://history1800s.about.com/od/colonialwars/a/kabul1842.htm

On the 6th of January, 1842, the Caboul forces commenced their retreat through the dismal pass, destined to be their grave. On the third day they were attacked by the mountaineers from all points, and a fearful slaughter ensued…​

The troops kept on, and awful scenes ensued. Without food, mangled and cut to pieces, each one caring only for himself, all subordination had fled; and the soldiers of the forty-fourth English regiment are reported to have knocked down their officers with the butts of their muskets.​

On the 13th of January, just seven days after the retreat commenced, one man, bloody and torn, mounted on a miserable pony, and pursued by horsemen, was seen riding furiously across the plains to Jellalabad. That was Dr. Brydon, the sole person to tell the tale of the passage of Khourd Caboul.​

More than 16,000 people had set out on the retreat from Kabul, and in the end only one man, Dr. William Brydon, a British Army surgeon, had made it alive to Jalalabad.

 

[Maidmarian]

Spreading cricket.

 

[Orang Utan]

niall ferguson

 

[Pickman's model]

nothing about mismanaging the Irish agriculture industry in the 1800's interesting

newsflash: the irish agricultural sector was not managed from london. a major thing about the famine is the government's belief in not managing, not intervening in free markets.

just come the fuck out and say 'the irish famine of the latter 1840s' and have done with it.

 

[Ax^]

Hmm who selected and governed the people managing the policy thru out the late 1700. And 1800 it was not about one event just the whole time period

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

For many the empire is or was a great national achievement of the times, and when the world was pink was a great feat of national endeavour especially for such a small nation. But there are many who would argue that it included horrible excesses and cruelty.

What I am after in this thread is the awful things that Britain did in or around these periods of history, what did Britain do for which it should be wholly ashamed?

Jesus: it's so hard to choose...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'd say it was the tactics that such a small country had to employ in order to rule the world. It left the world majorly fucked up.

I'm talking about the creation of countries without any consideration for which tribal or ethnic groups would be contained in the new artificial borders. It applies most glaringly in Africa, but was also employed in the Middle East etc.

Following from that was the tactic of playing off different ethnic groups against each other so that they wouldn't unite against the British. We still have fallout from that today.

The third, was the attempts to destroy all native religions and belief systems, once again, to undermine any institutions that might compete with, or provide a basis for rebelling against, loyalty to the Empire. This was most evident in NA and Africa.

 

[craigxcraig]

The Massacre at Amritsar must be one of the many examples.

I was there a couple of weeks back and went along, it's quite shocking and there's a very moving painting there which I'll try to post one I have a better connection.

 

[A Dashing Blade]

Not spreading enough Marmite.