Editing Industrial Revolution (section)

== The British Empire ==
{{British}}
{{topquote|On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges.|The Caledonian Mercury}}
[[image:British Empire 1921.png|thumb|left|400px|“C" is for colonies
Rightly we boast
that of all the great nations
Great Britain has most!"- Mrs Ernest Ames, An ABC for Baby Patriots]]

Remember the British East India Company from the [[Age of Enlightenment]]?  Well, eventually Britain decided to drop the pretense that it was merely an English corporation that was building colonies everywhere and just owned the fact that, yes, they were trying to take over the world. They hadn't been the only ones; the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Germans, Russians, and several American presidents were as well, and near the end Japan would try to get in on the action.

The Napoleonic Wars had left the British in the enviable position of having the world's biggest, baddest navy. This was a title they would hold until the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the massive debts the British had racked up during WWI led them to conceded that they would have to be okay with the US Navy equaling them in size. They would lose it entirely after the Second World War, due to the tremendous debts of fighting that war piled on top of the previous one. 

Having a massive navy at its disposal meant that the British could effectively dictate terms to anyone within sight of the sea. This persuasion was not solely political strong-arming, but also took the form of general peacekeeping and anti-slavery operations with the West Africa Squadron alone freeing hundreds of thousands of slaves and largely shutting down the Atlantic Triangle. At its height the British Empire had founded colonies or established protectorates on almost every major landmass on Earth, and had presences at the key maritime choke points of Gibraltar, the Suez, the Cape of Good Hope, Singapore, and the Falklands near Cape Horn. It was said that "The sun never sets on the British Empire," which is still technically true due to the existence of the Pitcairn Islands.

=== The Crimean War ===
The Crimean War is one of those wars that tends to be forgotten about by non-history buffs, but its effects on the world were out of all proportion to its relatively short duration (October 1853-February 1856). This was the war that gave us [[Wikipedia:Florence Nightingale|Florence Nightingale]], [[Wikipedia:Charge of the Light Brigade|the Charge of the Light Brigade]], the [[Wikipedia:Victoria Cross|Victoria Cross]], and the [[Wikipedia:Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia|Great Reforms of Tsar Alexander II]]. It was also one of the first conflicts to see widespread use of high-explosive shells, telegraphs, railways, and photography; in some senses it can therefore be considered the first modern war. 

The war was ostensibly started over the treatment of Christians in the Ottoman Empire, but in reality it was all about the balance of power in Europe. The Ottoman Empire was in the middle of its long collapse, and Russia was taking the opportunity to flex its muscles in Central Europe. Britain wasn't thrilled by the prospect of Turkey being conquered by Russia, and Napoleon III needed a show of strength abroad to strengthen his position at home. When the Ottomans asked for changes to the agreement on their treatment of Orthodox Christians, Russia threw a fit and declared war. The British, French, and eventually the Italians sided with the Ottomans. At first, the fighting was bloody and inconclusive, with the Russians mauling the Ottomans at the Battle of Sinop and laying siege to Kars but being stopped at Silistra. The British and French promptly sent ships and troops through the Dardanelles into the Black Sea and invaded the Crimea. This is where the Battle of Balaclava and the Siege of Sevastopol took place. Balaclava became famous for the [[Wikipedia:The Thin Red Line (Battle of Balaclava)|"Thin Red Line"]] of the 93rd Highlanders and the [[Wikipedia:Charge of the Light Brigade|Charge of the Light Brigade]]. The Siege was a badly managed, yearlong slog that killed thousands of troops on both sides and wound up killing the British army commander, Lord Raglan, who'd been catching hell in the press since Balaclava and was even more depressed that the Russians were holding out for so long. Ultimately the mounting casualty figures and apparent pointlessness of the whole thing led Britain and France to call for peace negotiations, the outcome of which saw Russia and Turkey handing back the territories they'd captured and Russia losing the right to base ships in the Black Sea. Russia's defeat was seen as a national humiliation and led directly to the Great Reforms of Alexander II. Among other things, he abolished serfdom in the Empire, modernized the military, relaxed press censorship, and reformed the justice and educational systems. Most of these reforms were rolled back by reactionary conservatives after Alexander was assassinated in 1881, which led to increasing unrest in the country's radical underground and may have ultimately contributed to the Russian Revolution in 1917. On the flipside, the British got the lasting cultural legacy of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale. Horrified by the reports of wounded British soldiers being treated in atrocious conditions, Florence rolled up her sleeves, went to the Crimea with some of her friends, and effectively invented the modern nursing profession while also pushing for reforms in sanitation that greatly reduced death rates in the field hospitals and would later be implemented throughout India and Britain.

Also led to the birth of the Red Cross and the first Geneva Convention.

=== The Indian Mutiny ===
In 1853 the cost of rifling had come down enough that the British could transition from smoothbore firearms supplemented by specialist riflemen, both using the slow and relatively unreliable flintlock system, to standardizing on a rifled, percussion-cap weapon, resulting in the 1853 Enfield. Like many firearms of this era, it was loaded via cartridges consisting of the powder and ball in a sealed paper sleeve. The rifle was loaded by tearing open the cartridge (often by biting it), pouring in the powder, and ramming in the ball. This significant arms upgrade eventually reached India. In 1857 rumors (which were never proven) developed that the cartridges were coated with animal fats including beef tallow and pork lard, pissing off the Hindu and Muslim natives. This proved to the final straw for a long-brewing rebellion. Shortly into the Mutiny, the mutineers at Cawnpore slaughtered women and children who had surrendered. This proved to be a PR disaster for the rebels, killing any claim they had to legitimacy or the moral high ground and enraging the British public enough to warrant a very strong response. One important note is that the mutiny was not total (in fact, the conflict was mostly contained to Bengal), and many colonial troops fought against the mutineers, particularly Sikhs who had no prohibitions on pork or beef and were keen on the idea of getting to kill Hindus and Muslims. The conflict would lead to the effective end of the British East India Company in favor of direct rule (the "British Raj"), which was generally a serious improvement in conditions for Indians if you continued to ignore the lack of influence they had over how they would be ruled.

While relatively short (a year and a half), there was little lull in the action and there are a lot of firsthand accounts one can look through to get an understanding of combat in the era. Of particular note is the several accounts of rebels being shot multiple times with a revolver but living long enough to kill or seriously injure men with their swords, which remain important in any consideration of knife vs. gun. One officer even managed to kill ~10 rebels with a ''spear'' by funneling them through a narrow doorway.

As a side note, the rifle at the center of this would eventually be exported to the Confederate States of America (see above) in large numbers, which after its defeat would then be sold surplus to the post-Sakoku Japanese government (see above again).

=== The Boer Wars ===
During the Napoleonic Wars the British gained control of every Dutch colony, and while they handed most of them back afterwards, they decided the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa was too good to let go, so they bought it. [[Rape|The Dutch weren't in a position to refuse the offer]]. A long series of disputes arising from this eventually escalated into a war between the Dutch-descended Boers and the British colonials (the Africans in the region were smart enough to know that they were kinda screwed no matter who won). Both wars were disasters for the British (even though they eventually won the second through overwhelming force) thanks to using Napoleonic tactics in an era of rifled repeating firearms. This was even worse in the first war since the British had not yet ditched their iconic red uniforms. Even after they got wise and switched to khaki, things didn't improve in the early stages of the Second Boer War as Redvers Buller, in charge on behalf of Garnet Wolseley, proved an unmitigated failure, losing battle after battle. After Buller got fired and replaced by Wolseley's rival Frederick Roberts (which caused the British army to basically split in two thanks to tensions between Wolseley's African colonial veterans and Roberts and his Indian troops), the Brits won on the field and the Boers resorted to an insurgency which was brutally suppressed (by which we mean the term "concentration camp" was literally invented here). Adding insult to injury, Roberts replaced Wolseley as Commander-in-Chief after the war.

The Boer Wars have been largely forgotten except by military historians due to their [[The World Wars|foreshadowing of things to come]]. One thing that has survived into the present day is the term "commando", which originally referred to the organization of the Boer forces during the wars and acquired its modern usage due to their unorthodox (for the time) tactics this organization enabled.
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