Unfinished Empire Sözleri ve Alıntıları
Unfinished Empire sözleri ve alıntılarını, Unfinished Empire kitap alıntılarını, Unfinished Empire en etkileyici cümleleri ve paragragları 1000Kitap'ta bulabilirsiniz.The gradual eclipse of Mughal authority in the eighteenth century and the rise of regional states had created the perfect conditions in which local elites had effectively privatized their functions as collectors of revenue and custodians of order. The tribute and revenue they had once had to pay over had been diverted to build up their own local power base: their strongholds and forts and their private armies of ‘enforcers’. So everywhere that British rule was proclaimed, it was rapidly followed by a revenue offensive. Tax records were scrutinized, old tax demands raised and inquiries begun into abuses and shortfalls. It was laborious work that depended for success on a host of Indian auxiliaries – and on the claim that the British were merely reasserting the ruler’s legitimate rights.
Between 1836 and 1919, the Moplahs, or Mappilas, impoverished Muslim cultivators in South India, rose on more than thirty occasions to attack their Hindu landlords, usually in revenge for eviction. They were invariably suppressed by military action, mainly for fear that the contagion would spread. Their aim was not to overthrow the rule of the British, but to appeal for its help against their local oppressors.
By 1913 coal had become Britain’s third-largest export. The export of coal as far away as Argentina helped keep British shipping profitable. But the reign of King Coal (as the pessimists warned) would not last for ever. It was growing more expensive to dig and its place would soon be threatened by oil. After 1914, an empire founded on coal and dependent on trade would enter a world in which its principal assets began to dwindle away.
From the outset of their war against France in 1793, the British seized every chance to further their global expansion. They took the Cape and Ceylon from the Dutch to strengthen their grip on the sea-route to India, and then French-held Mauritius. Spain’s alliance with France was punished by the loss of Trinidad in 1796. An expedition from India occupied the island of Java, the jewel in the crown of the Dutch overseas empire. When the Portuguese king, in fear of the French, removed his court to Brazil, the price of British protection was to open the country to British mercantile enterprise.
‘Let us be master of the Strait for six hours,’ said Napoleon, ‘and we shall be masters of the world.’ Naval command of the Straits of Dover and the Narrow Seas and, by extension, keeping the Low Countries free from a rival great power, were the key to British security.
Britain and France would invade the Canal Zone under the pretext of protecting the waterway from the effects of an Israeli attack upon Egypt which they had secretly urged Israel to launch. Nasser’s crushing defeat would ensure his political downfall – or worse – an outcome to which London, Paris and Tel Aviv (for different reasons) all looked forward with pleasure. Notoriously, this intricate scheme went badly wrong. The Anglo-French operation was aborted within days when Washington, carefully left in the dark, declared its furious opposition. A humiliating withdrawal was to follow. Eden’s health and his premiership collapsed. Nasser became, in the eyes of much of the world, the hero of the hour: a nationalist David who had slain the Goliath of empire.