The failure of foreign policy in the years 1514-1525 can be attributed to many things. The combination of Henry's isolation from European affairs and the fact that his attempts to raise tax were ultimately unpopular failures, meant that he had no way to impose himself upon Europe. Even when he did manage to scrape together the finances needed for a strong foreign policy his reliance on his allies led to disaster. As soon as Henry took the throne in 1509, it was obvious that he was a king that wanted to fight a war. However, wars generally led to very expensive costs to the country.
It established a weak central government with strong individual state governments. Because of this the federal government was too weak to maintain control over all the colonies, which led to many problems amongst the states. It left the country without a political leader such as a president. It also left the country no way to pay off the war debts from the previous years and it was lacking a tax
As Strayer, Gatzke, and Harbison state in their textbook The Course of Civilization states “The basic trouble was that very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving… the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities. They could not organize to protect themselves; they could not serve in the army… Their economic plight was hopeless. Most of them were serfs bound to the soil, and the small urban groups saw their cities slipping into an economic decline.”(DBQ 2, Doc 1) What these men mean is the majority of the people (which were poor serfs) were excluded from political responsibilities. In addition, they could not protect themselves or serve in the army mainly because they were too poor (in order to be in the army, the people had to be wealthy) and the urban patricians saw their city fall into an economic downfall. What also led the downfall of the Western Roman Empire were the rise of Christianity and the large size
There were also other external factors, but this was the one with the greatest impact since it was like the final blow. The internal conflicts that partially caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire were mostly composed of disagreements of Christianity, tax increases, power trips between leaders, etc. This fall led to a whole new age sometimes referred to as the “Dark Ages”. This was because all the people that were ruled by the Empire depended on protection, food, etc. so when the empire collapsed, they were left with nothing and had to strive very desperately to obtain back what they had lost.
The fall of these two societies was strangely similar; they endured hardships through significant factors such as the Germanic Invasions that made them decline in power. They were abolished by the same conflicts. One of the main conflicts was due to the immense military power of Germanic Legions persistently attempting to invade the empires. It cost the empires a great deal to keep their borders protected from continuous invasions sent by German leaders. Julius Caesar was not even capable of stopping or preventing the invasions from these barbaric tribes.
For example, there were no longer any engineers left who knew how to build or maintain aqueducts. This meant that when these structures broke they couldn’t be fixed, and so over time there was less provision for clean water. The local population used the stone from the bath houses and other structures to build their own homes as there was less emphasis on public health. The new rulers of Britain did not think it was as important as the Romans had. By 1350 there were some quite serious public health problems in towns, where the lack of fresh water and drainage was a problem which caused the water to be contaminated by other sources and was not healthy to drink.
This made the Romans prone to injuries and “because they have no armor, think about running and not fighting” (Document B). Because of the loss of troops from the loss of armour, the Roman army’s numbers diminished. No soldiers were drafted since many groups were exempted from joining the army. This lessened the defences and security of Rome, and Rome became weaker. Another primary reason of Rome’s decline was a series of foreign invasions.
This is because although they were successful it created major problems for Heaths government and even those who succeeded them. The continuous miners strikes led to Heath pulling tough measures, which included the three-day week. This is because the government didn’t want to just give into the miners and in the contrast Heath wanted to defeat them by limiting ‘the use of electricity to three specified days per week’-Heath. However this restrictive measure led to a significant uproar, as it was similar to the austerities, which ordinary people had experienced from the war such as people not having heating, unable to cook and sitting by candlelight. This shows that the ordinary people didn’t gain anything from the unrest in 1973/4 as it caused major inconveniences in the home highlighting that it was an issue.
With a lack of communication on both sides and an unhappy country, it would have been very difficult to govern such a hostile environment as no members of public would have followed the laws or asks of their leader. Finally, the diverse economy makes laws very hard to put into place because certain introductions are going to benefit some whilst disadvantaging others e.g. The introduction of taxes for the rich to pay for the peasants would not have gone down well with some, but helped others back into a quality of life. For the above reasons, Russia was extremely hard to govern in the 19th Century. “Why was Russia so hard to govern in the 19th Century?” Russia was so hard to govern in the 19th Century due to the political situation, angry people and diverse economy.
The city revolved around a “survival of the fittest” manner and would chew you up only to spit you back out for another beating if you didn’t comply. The unfair techniques politicians used to scam elections made it close to impossible for the weak to gain any strength. So the days carried on for the immigrants, who mainly worked in factories. Low pay kept the people on a tight working schedule and made it tough to live. The conditions were so bad many people ended up unable to work due to sickness or death from either the meat or exhaustion.