>>508589740>Did it happen before or after WW2?Basically, the signs that we were past peak were already becoming visible by the time Edward VII died; the Boer Wars sapped a lot of energy from the administrations of Africa; Can, Aus, and NZ were effectively self-governing; Irish nationalism was surging and the republicans were beginning clandestine armament; Indian nationalism had not only coalesced into a coherent political movement, it had developed enough to split into separate Hindu and Muslim organisations, etc. The Empire was in its senescence, but those were all very slow-burn factors
But then came the 1914 war, which had absolutely fucking nothing to do with us, it was entirely between Germany, France and Russia. But we entered it anyway, for dodgy reasons, and it turned those slow-burn factors into immediate, pressing issues. Britain was brought to financial ruin, the old aristocracy had been decimated by the war (both financially and by losing their best sons), the nationalist movements across the Empire got violent, Can/Aus/NZ all decided they'd got a shit deal out of the war. And, worst of all, the USA (who had been a real candidate for a war with Britain for dominance in the Pacific at the turn of the century) had rapidly overtaken Britain as the strongest global power. Compound it all with the global financial crisis of the late '20s, a domestic constitutional crisis in the '30s, the whole fucking mess of politics on the Continent throughout the period, and it's really no wonder the Empire collapsed as rapidly and spectacularly as it did