The average Englishman was ashamed of the British Empire and believed (quite wrongly) that it had been acquired in some wicked fashion... This sense … - A. J. P. Taylor

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The average Englishman was ashamed of the British Empire and believed (quite wrongly) that it had been acquired in some wicked fashion... This sense of sin placed British governments at a disadvantage in their negotiations with Germany: they were convinced of the justice of German grievances even before the grievances were expressed. British governments had spent most of the nineteenth century trying to prevent the growth of the British Empire, and still it had grown; German governments had done their utmost to encourage colonial enterprise, and yet their empire was a failure; clearly it was the fault of British governments and they must put it right... there they stood, ears anxiously cocked for the next German complaint. Moreover, British politicians have always been peculiarly sensitive to the charge of "unfriendliness" towards other politicians or other countries... Granville's letters to Herbert Bismarck—my dear fellow, what can be wrong?—are not unique in the record of British policy, and if the dear fellow insists on this or that as the price of renewing eternal friendship, of course he must have it.