What was the worst period of your nation's history? Is there a year, decade or century that is seen as the nation's low point, which nobody wants to go back to?
1929 is considered to have been the darkest year in Britain's modern history. Following the Revolution, the new, inexperienced agricultural co-operatives found themselves unable to produce enough grain to meet demand, leading to a shortage of bread and cases of starvation in parts of the country. This was made worse by the loss of trade with the rest of the Empire, which had placed an embargo on the British Isles. On top of this, a counter-revolutionary paramilitary emerged, known as the Provisional British Army (PBA), which mostly consisted of dispossessed landowners and farm labourers who had grown tired of the new reforms. They launched an insurgency in the south-west, setting fire to collectivised farms and terrorising rural villages. This culminated in the Taunton Massacre of 3rd June, in which the PBA rounded up 64 local syndicalist officials and executed them in the town's castle. In response, the government proscribed the organisation, implemented martial law and conscripted the entire 17-25 year-old male population. Although this stabilised the situation somewhat, it marked the beginning of the country's slide into authoritarianism.
