Chapter 27 Balfour's New Concept of Empire

Starting around the early 1890s, a group of British elites, mainly from Oxford and Cambridge universities, formed a policy circle that was very influential for more than half a century.This circle does not recognize its own official existence, but their shadow can be found in the 1910 Chuangli publication "The Round Table". This circle believes that a more intelligent and effective system is needed for the global empire to extend the hegemony of Anglo-Saxon culture in the new century. At the beginning of its establishment, this "round table" circle had a clear tendency to be anti-German and support the British Empire.Three years before Britain declared war on Germany, a very influential insider, Philip Kerr, Lord Lothian, wrote in the Round Table in August 1911: At present, there are two international codes of morality— British (or Anglo-Saxon) norms and Continental (or German) norms.The two are equal.However, if the British Empire is not strong enough to have real influence in the impartial conduct of international affairs, then the reactionary norms of German bureaucracy are bound to triumph, and the international community is dealing with events like Agadir [July 1911, Germany Deploy the warship Panther to Agadir in an attempt to challenge French rights in Morocco.This event is also known as the Second Monaco Crisis. It is only a matter of time before the stagnation of the Translator] will inevitably sacrifice the British Empire.Unless the British can become strong and make it impossible for their competitors to win when they attack, they will have to accept the political standards of a coveted military power.

In lieu of costly military occupation of the British Empire's colonies, they advocated a more restrained policy of accommodation, calling for a "Commonwealth of Nations" of states.Let each member state have the illusion of independence, so that Britain can reduce the high cost of stationing occupying troops in India and Egypt, and now its territory has expanded to Africa and the Middle East. The phrase "informal empire" is sometimes used to illustrate this shift. The growing gang gathered around the influential London Times and included the Foreign Secretary, Lord Albert Gray, Arnold Toynby, the historian and member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and HG Wells, responsible for Alfred Lord Milner of the South Africa Project, and Halford Mackinder, a professor at the London School of Economics and an advocate of the new field of geopolitics, the gang formed during the Versailles negotiations in 1919 The corridors of the Palace of Versailles, which later became the foundation of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Catham House).

The idea of ​​a Jewish-dominated Palestine, surrounded by separatist and quarreling Arab states, which could survive only by recourse to British patronage, was an integral part of the gang's new conception of British empire.During the Versailles Peace Conference, Mackinder described their vision of the role that the British Protected Territories of Palestine would play in Britain's "Great Game" strategy towards a post-1918 global empire that would Formed under the influence of the League of Nations manipulated and dominated by the United Kingdom. Mackinder described the British government’s long-term plan for Palestine in this way in 1919: If we regard the world as an island, and human beings are the masters of this world, if we regard the Arabian Peninsula as the land from Europe to India, from the heartland of the north The corridor to the southern hinterland is the center of the world's islands, so in today's world, the strategic position of the mountain castle of Jerusalem is as important as it was in the Middle Ages or in ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt.

He writes: Thousands of ships shuttle between India and Europe on the Suez Canal, these ships are within effective striking distance of the Palestinian garrison, and a railway line has been being built across the coast near Jaffa, through which Main rail lines can link the Southern Heartland with the Northern Heartland. Balfour was a friend of Mackinder. Regarding the special significance behind Balfour's proposal to Rothschild in 1917, Mackinder wrote: The establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was one of the most important victories of the war.Now we can tell the truth... This is the land that is at the actual and historical center of the world, the land that unites the Jewish people as a people... There are attempts to distinguish the Jewish religion from the Hebrews, but, sure, The general perception of their national identity is largely the same.

The grand blueprint of the "Round Table" circle is to connect the vast colonial occupation area of ​​the United Kingdom into one piece, from the gold and diamond mines started by Cecil Rhodes in South Africa and the joint gold mines of Rothschild to the north to Egypt, And through the Suez Canal to Mesopotamia, Kuwait and Persia, into the east of India. In 1916, Britain occupied Tanganyika, a German colony in Central Africa. Although this battle was not a key battle to force Germany to seek peace, it enabled Britain to complete the most critical link in the chain of controlling the Cape of Good Hope to Cairo.

With the vast ability to control this vast area, one can control the most valuable strategic raw materials in the world - gold and oil.The former is the basis of world trade transaction standards, and the latter is the most important energy source in the modern industrial age starting in 1919. The reality entering the early 21st century is no different than it was in 1919, and remains a geopolitical reality.As long as gold and oil are controlled, every country on earth will submit to the scepter of the British (American) Empire.Cecil Rhodes was the main financial patron of this so-called "informal empire" elite gang until his death in 1902.

The Boer War (1899-1902) was another plan of this gang. In order to ensure the firm control of Britain over the huge and rich mineral resources of Transvaal, Rhodes paid and personally provoked this war.At that time, the area was controlled by the Dutch Hill people.Other members of the circle, such as Rhodes and Alfred Milner, rashly provoked this war, and Winston Churchill also stood out in this war.The main purpose of this war is to firmly control what is considered to be the richest gold producing area in the world in the hands of the British. The Transvaal is the largest source of gold discovered in the world since the California "Gold Rush" of 1848.Control of the region is crucial to continuing to cement London's position as the world's financial system leader and its role as the king of the gold standard.Lord Milner, Jane Smoots and Rhodes were all members of the New Empire gang as part of a "Great Game" strategy to defeat the independent Boers and create the Union of South Africa.

By 1920, through military occupation, duplicitous tactics, and the establishment of a British protectorate in Palestine as a Jewish homeland, the British not only firmly controlled the vast newfound oil wealth of the former Ottoman Empire, but also succeeded in controlling southern Africa, including the former of German Southwest Africa.However, 1920 was not peaceful.The British Empire had just come out of war and was bankrupt, perhaps in worse shape than when it entered the war.