The Economic Impacts Of Great Britain And The Industrial Revolution

During the 1800s, Great Britain was running the world economically, militarily, politically, and socially. One major reason Great Britain was leading the way is for the reason that this is where the Industrial Revolution started. Technological inventions like the steam engine changed the game for British manufacturing. Because Great Britain had British colonies which spanned a quarter of the globe, it had access to numerous raw materials, such as coal, iron, timber, gold, silver, cotton, and wool. One way Britain showed its dominance over the world was during the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London at the Crystal Palace, which was attended by more than six million people and had over 10,000 exhibits. Not only was Great Britain ruling economically,

Great Britain entered into World War as Germany wanted to invade Belgium, but by the Treaty of London of 1839, Britain government wanted to protect Belgium as was close to the Britain’s coast and if Germany invaded Belgium they would then be too close to Britain. So, when Germany attacked France through Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany, which lasted from 1914 to 1918. Even though Great Britain was a victor in World War I, the wat had detrimental effects on the mighty British empire. On top of the cost of war, the war affected foreign trade greatly which had a huge effect on Britain economically. Countries that had previously relied on British trade was forced to fend for themselves, so when Britain was back up and running their goods were no longer needed, inflation skyrocketed. Great Britain was to suffer the greatest recession in history as they went from being the worlds largest investor to one of the biggest debtors. Militarily Great Britain’s army was smaller than Germany and France. A large amount of the British army was made up of volunteers. By the end of the war Great Britain lost over 700 thousand deaths. There were some great strides made politically after WWI, for the first time the right to vote was given to all men over the age of 18 and to women over the age of 30. There were social changes occurring as well as the working classes were starting to rise up and people in the worked were no longer striving to look like and be Great Britain. As if WWI hadn’t done enough damage World War II will finish the