*Napoleonic imperialism was paid for by plunder… A nation proclaiming liberty, fraternity and equality was now… conquering non-French populations, stationing armies upon them, sequestering their goods, distorting their trade, raising enormous indemnities and taxes and conscripting their youth… In Italy between 1805 and 1812 about half the taxes raised went to the French.” Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, 133, 135.
†“In 1914 London declared war on Germany on behalf of the entire empire. But long before post – Second World War anti-colonial nationalism stripped away Britain's Asian and African colonies, the ‘white' dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were resisting rule from London. By the time of the Chanak crisis with Turkey, in 1922, London had discovered that it could not count on automatic support from the empire. After 1926 British military planners no longer considered the British Commonwealth to be a reliable basis for military plans.” Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Misleading Metaphor of Decline: Analogies between the United States and Post-Imperial Britain are Inaccurate and Mischievous,” The Atlantic 265 (March 1990): 89.