Empires – Military Might & other methods of gaining control - section (ii)

In the previous videos, we looked at the British Empire – its beginnings and endings. We’ve also looked at the British Empire’s treatment of India and China. It’s now time to consider Empires in a more general manner.
In this video, I will focus on how Empires come into being.
Put in the simplest of terms, Empires are created by countries expanding the limits of their control beyond their borders. Control is crucial. Control is essential to an Empire because when you have control of a nation, you can direct it as desired. Conversely, when you don’t have control, or when you lose control of a nation, you can’t do anything.
The building of an Empire happens in various different ways.
 By using military might.
The most obvious method is by the use of force – armies invade and conquer the territory. We can look to the Roman Empire as an easy example. In AD 43 the Roman Empire, under the rule of Emperor Claudius, invaded and conquered Britain. The Romans had made several attempts before this, but none had been successful. Emperor Caesar tried twice in 55 and 54 BC. But failed both time. Emperor Claudius then succeeded where Caesar, did not. Even though the Romans were finally able to establish themselves as rulers in many parts of the country, the Romans didn’t manage to rule over the entirety of the British Isles. In the north of Britain, we can find the ruins of a wall built by the Romans. Hadrian’s wall, as it’s called, runs 73 miles (or 118 kilometres), all the way across the land, coast to coast, following an east west line. It was defended by garrisons of infantry, stationed in fortifications, placed at periodic intervals, along its length.
This wall defines the limit of the Roman Empire in the Western region. It’s the clearest demarcation of Roman rule that there can possibly be. Back in the days of the Roman Empire, they did not rule the land beyond, on the other side of the wall. They were unable to subdue the native inhabitants of what was back then, called Caledonia and is now, Scotland. The wild, warrior clans defied Roman rule by using what we would describe as nowadays as guerrilla warfare.
I only found this out recently, but the Romans also build another wall, further north – the Antonine Wall. The aim was to extend their rule that bit further. But they did not succeed in this endevaour. The clans of Caledonia were an unruly bunch. Deeming them ungovernable, the Romans gave up.
This example shows the importance of control to an Empire. Despite being a powerful Empire, with a mighty army at its disposal, they could not gain control of Caledonia.

Moving on, there are other methods of gaining control –
 By creating “spheres of influence” - dominions and protectorates etc.
We can gain an understanding of what diplomat’s call “spheres of influence” by looking at Persia (what is now called Iran). The history of Persia is a complex one, so I can only provide a couple snapshots here.
There was a contest between Britain and Russia for c