Missing the point aren't you Jom. Had Great Britain stood apart and ignored it's treaty obligations and decided than it was unimportant to look after the national interest then millions would have been out of work within 15 years.

Empire purely a force for evil?? A pretty naive view on things if applied to the British Empire which when all said and done was established on trade not conquest. Was it all sweetness and light? A bed of roses? Did those who ruled get it perfectly right all the time? Of course they bloody well didn't and nobody is attempting even remotely of suggesting that. Suggest you read Naill Ferguson's Book "Empire" he puts it far better than I could. Now without Great Britain and her Empire Jom:

- The Slave trade would have continued and expanded without a stutter, it was the British and the Royal Navy that broke it.

- Piracy would have hampered and limited trade and acted as a brake on development throughout the world, it was the British and the Royal Navy that ended the scourge of piracy allowing merchant ships of all nations to trade and sail unhindered.

- Development throughout the world was rapid due to the British industrial revolution which provided wealth and employment

- British inventions and engineering made the world smaller and more accessible.

- Advances in medicine took on and greatly reduced, and in some cases eradicated, some of the worlds greatest killers

- Spread of Parliamentary democracy, rule of law and order, came as part and parcel of the British Empire

The list Carroll goes on and on. Ferguson also states that by the 1880s the Empire was actually costing Great Britain money and it would have disappeared anyway.

On two occasions Great Britain, her Commonwealth and her Empire came to the world's rescue and stood against would be tyrants, it cost her dear, but the costs of not acting were far higher. You ignore all that if you wish to, I won't and every time you trot out your idiotic, biased and bigoted beliefs I will pull you up on them. Those aired in this thread and in previous threads on WWI have been shown to consist of nothing but fairytales, whereas everything that has been stated by either myself, or Keith can be backed up by verifiable substantive evidence.