the days of Empire

Here is a picture for those who received New Year's honours referring to the British Empire or believe in them - the Royal Yacht Osborne of the Duke of York in Kiel, Germany, 1890s. She was built in 1870 during the reign of Queen Victoria and broken up in 1908.

In those days there was not just the British empire but four others in Europe - the French, the German (the Second Reich headed by Kaiser Wilhelm I who was Queen Victoria's first grandchild, then Kaiser Wilhelm II), the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian. The territories of the first two were mostly outside Europe. The little scuffle called World War 1 led to the end of the last three. But of course Hitler and Stalin started building their empires 20 years later; the first's was short-lived, the second lasted until 1991, but only ruled by Stalin until his death in 1953.

The British empire, like the French, started collapsing after WW2 and by the 1960s no-one could call it an empire any more. But of course the present government thinks it's cool for people to have honours that refer to it.

If we're going to have honours that refer to empires that no longer exist, why not the Roman Empire? Britannia was a part of it. Now that would be cool.