Three Decisions that Destroyed the British Empire

Leaders’ decisions can cause the destruction of empires. Poor decisions were fatal for history’s largest and most powerful imperium, the British Empire.

Identifying the decisions that destroyed the British Empire can tell us how today’s empires, such as the United States of America, the People’s Republic of China, and the Republic of India could fall. Tellingly, two of today’s empires, the United States and the Republic of India, are successor states to the British Empire.

Here are three decisions that destroyed the British Empire. Ironically, the people who made these decisions thought they were preserving the empire when they made them.

Three Terrible Decisions that Doomed the British Empire

1. Deploying British Troops to America

Britain had a healthy relationship with its American colonies until Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the Colonies began dispatching British to “maintain order” in the colonies.

In particular, Hillsborough deployed 4,000 troops to enforce Royal Decrees in Boston in 1768. The troops’ presence made a terrible situation far worse. In particular, British officials stopped working with colonists. Instead, the officials began barking…