What led to the decline of Britain? Britain's influence started to decline around the beginning of the 20th century. Other industrializing countries were posing an increasing number of challenges to Britain. While Britain observed a decline in its position as the world's leading naval power, Germany increased its naval strength.

"A golden torrent of British capital flowed abroad from 1870 to 1914, annually averaging about a third of the nation’s investment" - Sounds incredibly large, has this level of overseas investment happened again since?