The Fourth British Empire
by Cassivellaunus, 25 May 2013
“As we look around us we see a Fourth British Empire with characteristics of its own. At present it lacks the individuality which is given to political institutions by a name, a formula, a statement of principles. This very lack of formula is characteristic of the Fourth Empire”
– Henry Vincent Hodson, 1948
The British Empire is generally held to have been ruled by the Royal Family. In reality, the monarch in Britain has always had to share power with members of the aristocracy and, increasingly, with the growing liberal capitalist middle classes, elements of which, over time, successfully usurped the power of the Crown to become Britain’s invisible rulers.
Another misconception is that the British Empire came to an end with its official dissolution and the creation of the Commonwealth. As shown below, the Empire is very much alive and kicking, only that (1) it no longer is British and (2) it is subordinated to the international New World Order.
First British Empire (1583 – 1783)
The First British Empire came into being with the acquisition of territories outside the British Isles, such as in North America, the Caribbean, India and later Australia, and ended with the American Revolution of 1775 – which led to America’s independence from Britain in 1783.
Second British Empire (1783 – 1848/1910)
In the wake of the American Revolution and the loss of the North American colonies, the British Empire entered a new phase, called the Second British Empire, in which attention was shifted from America to Asia and, later, to Africa, where the Empire expanded its power and influence.
The end of this Second Empire was less abrupt than that of its predecessor, stretching over a period of half a century, from the mid-1800s into the early 1900s. Its demise was set in motion around the time of the 1848 Paris Commune, when the Colonies began to be granted self-government, eventually becoming Dominions, that is, territories nominally under British sovereignty but enjoying self-government except as in such matters as foreign affairs (that were to be conducted in co-operation with the United Kingdom).
This latter part of the Second Empire is closely connected with the rise of Liberalism and its offshoot, Socialism, as well as with the replacement of the aristocracy with a new ruling class consisting of left-wing financial and industrial interests. In addition, new links were forged with France, with which these interests were connected by a common Liberal ideology and, in particular, with America with which they had economic links.
In Britain, these interests aimed to undermine the authority of the Crown and aristocracy (the big landowners) in order to take control of trade and the economy. Thus, by 1850, the Empire had come to be largely run by “unseen committee men” (Passmore Edwards) working from behind the scenes to push the system in a Liberal, i.e., left-wing direction.
This behind-the-scenes committee work was instigated by prominent Liberals like Richard Cobden, a textile magnate with railway interests in America and his collaborator John Passmore Edwards, a newspaper owner. These Liberal elements were also active internationally through organisations like the Anglo-American Peace Society which aimed to create a United States of Europe and unite the British Empire with America under the guise of “world peace,” “free trade” and “universal brotherhood.”
At the apex of this unofficial power structure (or empire within empire) were power-obsessed industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, a steel tycoon and radical journalist who wanted to abolish the Royal Family and the House of Lords.
A special place within this elite was held by bankers and financiers like the less radical but still left-wing Rothschild family. Their German-born ancestor Mayer Amschel (1743-1812) had already been one of the most influential businessmen of all times (ranked 7th in the world by Forbes).
By the late 1800s, leading politicians like Lord Rosebery, Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston Churchill’s father) and Arthur (later Lord) Balfour were frequent guests at the Rothschild country houses where many of the most important political decisions were taken (Ferguson, 2000, vol. 2, p. 319).
The discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa greatly increased the wealth and power of these unofficial elites. The Rothschilds became involved – as friends and financiers – with a new group of mining magnates, Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Beit, Julius Wernher, among them. Their combined wealth and influence made these elements powerful enough to virtually take over the Empire.
In 1891, Natty Rothschild, Rhodes and their collaborators formed a secret association called “the Society of the Elect,” later known as the Milner Group, for the purpose of taking over the Empire and creating a world government controlled by themselves (Quigley, pp. 3, 34 ff.).
As part of this plan, the Milner Group developed closer links with its American Wall Street associates – the so-called Eastern Establishment consisting of J. P. Morgan, the Rockefellers and collaborators – and set up a number of organisations to further Anglo-American relations, including military co-operation. Chief among these were the Anglo-American League and the Pilgrims Society.
Third British Empire (1910 – 1945)
At this point, the Milner Group (so called after its leader Lord Alfred Milner, an employee of the Rothschilds at their mining company Rio Tinto) virtually ran the Empire and was responsible for re-organising it into a Commonwealth of Nations, creating thereby the Third British Empire.
By 1910, most colonies had become Dominions. As part of the Commonwealth they were to become fully independent and “equal,” yet acting in close co-operation with each other and with Britain at the centre of this new imperial organisation.
Co-ordination of policy between London and the rest of the Empire was ensured through the Milner Group’s imperial conferences and foreign relation institutes operating in close collaboration with the London Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), while close contact with America was maintained through RIIA’s sister organisation, the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Anglo-American League and the Pilgrims Society, which also had branches in London and New York.
Working in parallel with the Milner Group was the Fabian Society, a political association founded in 1884 and – like the Milner Group – aiming to establish a Socialist world order, whose leaders were friends and collaborators of leading Milnerites like Natty Rothschild, Rosebery, Balfour and Lord Haldane.
The Fabian leadership was in constant contact with the Milner Group through the Coefficients dining club and other informal meetings and the two groups were in full agreement on international plans such as the division of the world into four or five economic blocs, the placement of colonies under an international authority and the creation of an international government consisting of “experts” of the Milner-Fabian sort. The Fabians also worked in close collaboration with the Milner Group in creating the League of Nations and associated organisations like RIIA and the CFR.
While the Milner Group was building the power structure for the new world order, the Fabian Society was mainly working to establish Socialism in Britain, America and elsewhere. Like the Milner Group, the Society set up a worldwide network oforganisations to further its ends (Ratiu, 2012).
Moreover, the Fabian Society’s activities were financially supported by the Milner Group and associates. For example, the London School of Economics (LSE), a university created to further the Society’s agenda and promote Socialism, was funded by the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, while Lord Rosebery and Natty Rothschild were among its early presidents.
Unsurprisingly, during this period the British Empire (and the world) came to be more and more dominated by the financial interests represented by the Milner Group and its Eastern Establishment associates, who together formed what Carroll Quigley and other historians have called “the Anglo-American Establishment.”
Among financial institutions most closely associated with the Anglo-American Establishment (whose members often served as directors, governors and chairmen of such institutions) were: Lazard Brothers, N. M. Rothschild & Sons, the Bank of England, J. P. Morgan & Co. and the Rockefellers’ National City Bank.
Already in the second half of the 19th century, Britain’s financial institutions had become “the world’s banker.” By the early 1910s, they accounted for 44 per cent of the world’s foreign investment (Pollard, 1985).
To further monopolise and centralise the world’s finances, these interests and their American associates launched various projects such as:
· The US Federal Reserve System (1913)
· The American International Corporation (1915)
· A Gold Reserve Bank of the United States of Europe (1921)
· The Bank for International Settlements (1930)
In addition to its drive for control of the world’s finances, the Anglo-American Establishment aimed to monopolise resources such as gold, steel and oil, that were already largely controlled by itself. For example, the J P Morgan-controlled Anglo American Corporation and associated outfits controlled South Africa’s gold production – which alone amounted to half of the world’s newly mined gold.
Between 1919 and 2004, the gold price itself was fixed daily at the Rothschild HQ in the City of London (Daily Telegraph, 17 Apr. 2004). Oil prices were similarly controlled by Rothschild and Rockefeller interests through operations like Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon.
This policy brought the British Empire into competition and eventually, conflict, with other powers such as Germany. Henry Noel Brailsford, later a prominent member of the Fabian International and Colonial Bureaux, referred to the First World War as “the War of Steel and Gold” (Brailsford, 1914).
Indeed, it was openly admitted by leading politicians of the time, including Milner Group leaders themselves, that both wars were a struggle between countries with resources, like Britain, America and France, and countries without resources, like Germany, Italy and Japan (Curtis, p. 192). Needless to say, the only reason some countries had no resources was because they had been prevented from acquiring any by those who had monopolised them.
Thus, another key feature of the Third British Empire was the two World Wars of 1914-19 and 1939-45.
Fourth British Empire (1945 – present)
The Fourth British Empire was created in the wake of the Second World War. Like its predecessor, it was a creation of the Anglo-American Establishment and it entailed not only a re-organisation of the Empire but a re-organisation of the whole world into what has been called the “New World Order” or short, “NWO.”
The Anglo-American Establishment’s commitment to the NWO is evident from public statements by front organisations like the British Labour Party which in its 1939 annual report declared that:
“The Labour Party will not abandon, now or ever, the vision of a New World Order”
This New World Order, of course, is a Socialist order run by a Socialist world government which is in turn controlled by the financial interests of the Anglo-American Establishment and their associates.
The official core of the Third British Empire and its world order was the League of Nations. Similarly, the Fourth Empire revolves around the League’s successor, the United Nations (established in 1945).
That the United Nations was a creation of the Anglo-American Establishment – the driving force behind the Fourth Empire – is evident from the over forty members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), along with Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller, who were present at the San Francisco Conference which wrote the UN Charter, while the preamble to the Charter was written by none other that leading Milnerite and Fourth Empire official, General Jan Smuts.
That the United Nations is intended to be a world government is clear from the organisations associated with it, for example:
The World Bank (WB)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The World Court a.k.a. International Court of Justice (ICJ)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
The World Trade Organisation (WTO)
The Commission on Global Governance (CGG)
The European Union (EU), etc.
Also beyond dispute must be that the United Nations and its New World Order are motivated by economic (i.e., financial) interests as demonstrated by official statements like the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order (Resolution A/RES/S6/3201, 1 May 1974):
“We, the members of the United Nations … solemnly proclaim our united determination to work urgently for the Establishment of a New International Economic Order”
While organisations like the UN are the official organs of the Fourth Empire and its NWO, there is an extensive network of semi-official and unofficial organs operating in close collaboration with the official ones. These include:
Socialist International
Bilderberg Group
Economic and Social Research Council
Trilateral Commission
Atlantic Institute for International Affairs
Atlantic Council
Transatlantic Business Council
Policy Network
Common Purpose
World Economic Forum
United Nations Foundation
European Council on Foreign Relations
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Club of Rome
World Council of Churches
Oxfam
African Union
African Economic Community
Africa Governance Initiative
Mediterranean Union a.k.a. Union for the Mediterranean.
These organisations and institutions may be classified into three broad categories according to the emphasis of their activities: (1) Atlanticist, working for greater financial, economic and political union between Europe and America; (2) internationalist, working for closer union between all countries with a view to establishing world government; and (3) Socialist, working to establish Socialism nationally and internationally. Regardless of the category they belong to, they all work for the same common goal which is the establishment of a Socialist World State.
Needless to say, these organisations and institutions, which were created during the Fourth Empire, operate in unison – and often in collaboration – with those established earlier, towards the end of the second and beginning of the third empires, such as the Fabian Society, the Pilgrims Society, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), etc.
The Fourth Empire: British or American?
Economic, military and political superiority has made America the dominant element in the New World Order. This has led some historians to describe the new international power structure as an “American Empire” (Ferguson, 2003, pp. 377-81).
However, some important facts must be taken into consideration, for example, that an American Empire would be impossible without British collaboration; that the City of London remains a powerful financial centre; and that the organs of this empire – including key financial institutions like Lazard, Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan – have Britons on their boards.
Moreover, it is clear from the network of organisations on which it is built, that the Fourth Empire is an Anglo-American entity. In fact, America and the whole New World Order itself, follows a general British, Milner-Fabian pattern. Equally correct, therefore, would be to speak of a Milner-Fabian, Atlantic or Rothschild-Rockefeller Empire, depending on whether the emphasis is political, geographic or financial.
Key features of the Fourth Empire
Some of the most notable features of the Fourth Empire are:
· It is deliberately less visible than its predecessors, so much so, that outsiders, or the uninitiated, may be totally unaware of its existence. Indeed, nothing would be known about it, were it not for the writings of its architects like Harry Hodson, former editor of the Milner Group’s Round Table, who later served as director of the Information Ministry’s Empire Division.
· It is no longer British but international with a dominant Anglo-American core and, increasingly, Middle Eastern, Asian and African participation. This tendency towards internationalisation has its roots in the fact that many of the leading elements behind the Third Empire – Alfred Milner, Alfred Beit, the Rothschilds, the Barings, the Astors – were of foreign extraction and represented international rather than British interests.
What becomes clear is that we are dealing with a systematic foreign take-over of the Empire and of Britain itself. This is the true explanation for the increasingly anti-national behaviour of successive British (and American) governments from the early 1900s to the present.
· It no longer revolves around defined territories and governments, but around control of resources, finances and international relations through unofficial networks of international organisations and institutions like the ones listed above.
· It is based on a Socialist-dominated political model based on growing centralisation and globalisation of financial, economic and political power.
· It is becoming more and more like a republic, with Prime Ministers playing an increasingly presidential role, while the Royal Family has become a puppet of the financial interests pulling the strings from behind the scenes. As a result, it is increasingly being used by them to publicly promote their agendas such as Islamisation and African causes, while at the same time “popularising,” that is, abolishing by stealth, the Monarchy itself.
· The media, entertainment and advertising industries, as well as official sports events (the Olympics, football championships, etc.) are almost exclusively used for the purposes of the Empire.
· There is growing involvement by the secret services in building, expanding and upholding the Empire’s power structure.
· While during previous British Empires the brunt of British imperialism was borne by other nations – notably Ireland, India, China, Germany, etc. – as the NWO noose is tightening, the current Empire has brought growing suffering to the British people themselves who are in the process of losing their territory, culture, ethnic identity and even their right to live.
· Mass immigration is believed to make the Empire militarily, economically and socially “stronger” and “better” and is promoted through organisations like the UN and its Forum for Migration and Development (UNFMD). From the point of view of the nations concerned, however, mass immigration amounts to population replacement or ethnic cleansing.
· Multiculturalism or the imposition of cultural diversity at the expense of indigenous British culture is likewise said to make Britain “stronger” and “better” and is being enforced through UN agencies like ECOSOC and the Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), as well as through various regional and national organisations.
· Islamisation (also Islamification) is the systematic promotion of Muslims, their religion and their culture in the West through international, regional and national organisations, such as ECOSOC, the Anna Lindh Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures (ALF), the Alliance of Civilisations (AoC), universities like the London School of Economics (LSE), etc.
· Focus on Africa. The discovery of diamonds and gold in South Africa in the late 1800s had already made the African Continent a key source of income for the Second and Third Empires’ invisible rulers (the Milner Group).
Africa’s paramount importance to the Empire is evident from the fact that the Empire’s African interests had already come to be known as “the Fourth British Empire” in the 1930s (Ensor, 1936, p. xxii). Naturally, Africa remains a central concern of the Empire, indeed, it is the Fourth Empire’s defining element.
In 1947, the Colonial Office described Africa as “the only continental space from which we can still hope to draw reserves of economic and military strength” (Callaghan, p. 174). The “development” of Africa, that is, its opening to exploitation by international money interests, was inserted into the 1950 Schuman Plan – which provided the basis for the European Coal and Steel Community (later European Union) – by Rene Mayer, a cousin of the French Rothschilds and former manager of their business empire (Monnet, p. 300).
Key projects motivated by the Fourth Empire’s African interests include the Organisation of African Unity (later African Union), the African Economic Community and, disturbingly, the plan to unite Europe with Africa. The latter was already promoted by the Anglo-American Establishment in the 1960s and a “Euro-African axis” is currently being constructed around the Mediterranean Union/Union for the Mediterranean (MU/UfM), a Rothschild-Rockefeller project aiming to bring about economic, political and cultural union between the European Union and North Africa (Ratiu, p. 447).
The Fourth Empire’s development of Africa and associated foreign aid programmeshave resulted in unprecedented growth in Africa’s population and millions of Africans are expected to migrate to Europe in search of employment (Sutherland, p. 8). While this provides Europe’s ruling financial interests with cheap labour, it also contributes to the population replacement (or ethnic cleansing) already taking place in many European countries, including Britain.
It becomes clear from the above facts that state-imposed mass immigration, multiculturalism and Islamisation, along with other negative and destructive developments characteristic of the Fourth Empire are driven by the ever-growing dependence of the international money power on resources extracted from foreign territories like Africa and the Middle East. Such developments show that the ruling elites in Britain and other Western countries have become the enemies of the nations they have brought under their control. They are the enemy within that needs to be eliminated if any positive changes are to be made to the current situation.
Imperial propaganda, manipulation and mass control
The Fourth Empire is aware of potential opposition to its authority on the part of the nations it has subjugated, especially the British and American people. Therefore, it has sought to deflect attention from itself by creating artificial and non-existing enemies. The following are a few examples.
The “Fourth Reich.” In the 1940s, while the Fourth Empire itself was spreading its tentacles across the globe, its architects came up with the clever device of raising the alarm over an alleged “Fourth Reich” (German Fourth Empire) in South America. Although the story was revived by the media and the intelligence services in the 60s and 90s, it was, of course, totally unfounded and turned out to have originated with the Establishment mouthpiece Daily Express (Dorril, pp. 96-7).
The Cold War. The “Cold War” was a period of tension between the Anglo-American Empire and its Russian Communist (Soviet) counterpart. It lasted for nearly half a century following World War II, it saw an enormous input of resources into an unprecedented military and intelligence build-up and, like similar projects of the Anglo-American Establishment, it was a scam.
To be sure, the danger of the spread of Russian Communism was very real, but the Soviet Union never really had the resources to conduct a protracted military campaign against the West. The real danger was that Britain’s own Stalinist LabourParty was in the process of infiltrating and taking over the country by stealth in line with the designs of its Fabian masterminds.
Indeed, there was increased contact between the Fabian Society and the Labour Party on one hand, and the Soviet regime on the other hand, during this period. Thus, the Cold War only served as a smokescreen for Labour’s systematic conversion of British society to Socialism (which mirrored similar activities of the Democratic Party in the USA) while being bankrolled by the very same financial interests who claimed to be fighting Communism.
Anti-racism. To deflect attention from its secret designs to change the racial, social and cultural make-up of the country through the deliberate import of millions of immigrants, the Establishment shifted the blame to its critics, accusing them of “racism” and branding them “fascists” and “Nazis,” thereby suppressing legitimate opposition and dissent.
Foreign aid. In suppressing opposition to its policies of mass immigration, the Establishment has successfully turned British people against themselves, making them uncritically accept the official policy of raising the interests of immigrants and foreigners in general, and those from the Third World in particular, above those of indigenous Britons. The only purpose of the indigenous British population seems now to be to provide the Third World – from where the Empire extracts its wealth and power – with more and more financial and other forms of aid, while welcoming millions of uninvited strangers and facilitating their take-over of the country at the expense of indigenous Britons.
The “War on Terror.” The war on Islamic terrorism is another Fourth Empire project that faithfully follows the Cold War pattern. In the same way as the Cold War claimed to fight Communism while promoting Socialism as a “moderate” form of Communism, the war on Islamic terrorism is a sham that promotes “moderate” Islam as an “antidote” to its more radical manifestations, in effect leading to the gradual Islamisation of Western society.
The above examples clearly illustrate an established pattern of diversion, misdirection and deception by which Britain’s secret government deflects attention from its own actions in order to protect itself and the interests behind it. However, while such tactics are to be expected from the Establishment, it is disturbing to find similar behaviour even among the Establishment’s self-declared opponents.
UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage has correctly identified Britain’s three main political parties as “social democratic” (BBC News, 7 Oct. 2006). But in that case, his priority should be not leaving the EU, but fighting the creeping Socialism that is stifling the country. As a former employee of Rothschild-associated banks like Natexis (currently Natixis), Mr Farage ought to know who the string-pullers behind Socialism are. After all, the Conservatives’ long-time chief policy adviser, Oliver Letwin, is not only a Rothschild director but also a former member of the Fabian Society.
Moreover, UKIP has shown itself to be less reliable on issues like immigration than some of its supporters are willing to admit. Its 2010 manifesto pledged to introduce “a 5-year freeze on all settled immigration” (UKIP London News, issue 8, 2010). By 2013, it had reviewed its policy to allow 50,000 (or more) in, which happened to match very closely the target of the “social democratic” Conservatives …
Meanwhile, while politicians of all denominations are busy changing their policies many times over to suit themselves (and the money interests behind them), the Empire’s evil designs are proceeding according to plan. The only realistic remedy, therefore, is to tear the veil of Establishment propaganda, disinformation and lies, look at the facts as presented by objective observers and supported by verifiable evidence, and then put up organised resistance to a system that is as thoroughly undemocratic as it is dysfunctional and corrupt. In other words, put democracy and sanity back into the system before it is too late.
BBC News, “UKIP ‘voice of British democracy’”, 7 Oct. 2006.
Brailsford, Henry Noel, The War of Steel and Gold: A Study of the Armed Peace, London, 1914.
Callaghan, John, The Labour Party and Foreign Policy: A History, Abingdon, Oxon, 2007.
Curtis, Lionel, World War, Its Cause and Cure, London and New York, NY, 1945.
Daily Telegraph, “Rothschild’s farewell to a golden age,” 17 Apr. 2004.
Darwin, John, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970, Cambridge, 2009.
Dorril, Stephen, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations, London, 2001.
Ensor, R. C. K., England 1870 -1914, Oxford, 1936.
Ferguson, Niall, The House of Rothschild, 2 vols., New York, NY, 2000.
Ferguson, Niall, Empire: How Britain made the modern world, London, 2003, Penguin Books special edition London 2012.
Hodson, Henry V., Twentieth-Century Empire, London, 1948.
Monnet, Jean, Memoirs, London, 1978.
Passmore Edwards, John, A Few Footprints: The Autobiography of John PassmoreEdwards, 1905.
Pollard, Sidney, “Capital Exports, 1870-1914: Harmful or Beneficial?,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 38/4, 1985, pp. 491 f.
Quigley, Carroll, The Anglo-American Establishment: From Rhodes to Cliveden, San Pedro, CA, 1981.
Ratiu, Ioan, The Milner-Fabian Conspiracy: How an international elite is taking over and destroying Europe, America and the World, Richmond, 2012.
Sutherland, Peter, “A Constructive Attitude to Migration is a Moral Issue,” Address to the International Eucharistic Congress, Dublin, 15 June 2012.
