when your enemy have spears and bows and arrows and we have guns and cannons it is not hard to rule...
You answered your own question.
However you answered it wrong, the British Army outside India on the eve of WW1 in 1914 was 100,000 that was to run the whole of the rest of the Empire.
The Germans with no Empire had 3,500,000 and referred to British Army as ~That contemtible little Army~ the French ran their Empire with a similar sized force to Germany.
India had another 100,000 British plus about 1 Million armed local Sepoys, so were outnumbered by the locals 10 to 1, you do not run an Empire on brute force and arm the locals.
It was run by rule of Law, which was generally available to the locals, which was largely why we were succesful, the locals could get fair treatment because no one (even the Monarch) was above the Law, Magna Charta had seen to that.
Myth the British conquered the Empire because the natives had bows and arrows, actually most of the time we were fighting the French, who were usually better armed, but the average French squaddie was not as well treated, and the British Squaddie always had the Law backing him up.
It has been noted the British acquired the Empire in a fit of absentmindedness, that is not far from the truth, we went out to trade, not to conquer.
Australia and Africa had no Governments, so lie US they had no land Laws and rule of written Law.
Where the British came across this in New Zealand we agreed a treaty (the Treaty of Waitangi) with the Local Government agreeing the terms and ensuring Land rights were kept.
The British Empire was built on Trade and enterprise and when it no longer paid we let it go.
India would have got its independence irrespective of other events because it had ceased to be profitable, meanwhile Portugal had to be kicked out with the threat of armed invasion by India in the early 60s.
Look at Mexico and Canada, one was conquered by force and the natives slaughtered wholesale, the other the French were booted out and the rest acquired as needed and trade expanded, but also rule of Law was paramount, hence Canada rich Mexico poor and drug ridden.
Edit damn I was forgetting Richard Sharpe, however he was mostly fighting the French.
Incidentally in India we often cut a deal with the local nabob and many locals were glad to see the British arrive and leave them to run their own lives not have some local despot keeping them in absolute poverty, we just kept them in relative poverty.
Some say it's was because we had bigger and better weapons, ha ha ha, naaaaaaa, sorry to say.
we did it for the most part by playing one side against the other, something we're very good at, and when that didn't work that's when we used our bigger weapons, which strange as it may seen wasn't all that very often.
Don't forget the British Empire was all about money power influence and most of all, wealth.
So if you can defeat one of your enemies by using another of your enemies, jobs half done before you've hardly had to lift a finger or fire a shot, and its cheaper, more profit that way
Are you talking about the British Empire? If so then little of that is fully true. Whilst some did only have spears and arrows (such as Native Americans) some did not. France had very advanced and modern weapons, as did Spain.
It wasn't specifically the firearms involved - it was more European infantry tactics that settled any disagreements - we didn't go looking for an Empire specifically in the beginning it was trade that we went after and then ended up taking over - if India is a good example it was conquest by trading company which was then 'nationalised'.
ha ha complete misunderstanding, we didn't have to beat people with bows and spears but other european armies (usually the french, but the russians and the dutch too) to gain an empire.
With a stiff upper lip and a couple of hundred gunboats...
I think everything came adrift when MAPS became commonly available and the communities we had been keeping under the thumb started looking to see where this England place was...
EDIT, to the poster above, ahh, but, we had Richard Sharpe...
It nots quite as simple as that. You forget Spain, Holland, France, Germany etc all had big guns & wanted the same patches of ground.
Quite simple - the Royal Navy defeated the French and Spanish and ruled the world on a quart of rum a day and lashings of extreme violence.
Nelson was even pickled after his death.
If thats what you want to think even the longest questions wont change your mind.My old Grandfather was in a Yorkshire regiment and according to his records fought all across India and Africa and if your fuzzy wuzzys had got Fred I would not be typing this,so its personal now.!
You've answered your own question pretty well. Guns and other weapons generally helped Britain run its empire.
Because we had bigger and better guns....
when your enemy have spears and bows and arrows and we have guns and cannons it is not hard to rule...
We didn't run an empire for three hundred years we watched it build for a hundred years then watched it crumble the next two hundred years
To disassemble our defense is crazy, and a good offense is the best defense.
Er, are you talking about the UK? And if so, why post an answer to your own question? What are you asking?
There wasn't a Labour government back then.
you answered your own question
