ABSTRACT
Britain’s position in the world, as we have described it, was m uch stronger in 1914 than is customarily thought.1 This claim does not arise from counting heads or estimating acres w ithin the British empire, sizeable though they were at the point w hen war broke out. It depends, rather, upon a reassessment o f the basis o f Britain’s global influence in the pre-w ar era. Although Britain’s manufactured exports were running into increasing difficulties in overseas markets, as is well know n and widely emphasised, Britain’s financial presence continued to grow and it remained strong, indeed pre-em inent, right dow n to 1914. M oreover, the financial presence, in the various forms we have discussed, dom inated policy towards the management o f the formal empire, and also gave Britain substantial interests and considerable influence outside it. Far from being in decline in the late nineteenth century, Britain’s ‘invisible empire’ was expanding at precisely that point. T o a degree that has often been underestimated, m ounting inter national rivalries and growing nationalist resistance from this time onwards were symptoms less o f the erosion o f Britain’s ‘hegem onic’ status than o f the continu ing extension o f her global influence. O n our interpretation, then, Britain re mained a dynamic power, and the anxieties, alarms and difficulties w hich beset the builders o f the second R om e, though real enough, need to be placed in the context o f their strikingly successful record in upholding British interests throughout the world.
