(PhD dissertation, . By Dr John Darwin The collapse of British imperial power - all but complete by the mid-1960s - can be traced directly to the impact of World War Two. Douglas pointed out that Britain was acting beyond its means it needed to choose between being an imperial power or a power within Europe, as being both was no longer a possibility. Of course, Britain emerged victorious in the Second World War, but that came after a string of defeats earlier in the conflict. Award-winning spoken word artist George the Poet has revealed that he turned down an MBE because of the . The territories that had once contributed substantially to British power were now an international player on their own. The British governments took up the challenge of anti-colonial revolts in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. The RAF Coastal Command had major submarine-hunting operations based in West Africa, while a smaller RAF command Dealt with submarines in the Indian Ocean. British Empire in World War II. The 1956 Suez Crisis was a savage revelation of Britain's financial and military weakness. This effect had started with the rise in cost for military expenditure and war with its colonial rivals Spain, France, and Holland .The money raised for the military expenditure was taken from the colonies, by adding harsh laws, restricting . The Indian National Congress party did not mince words in their appraisal of the act, calling it a "Slave constitution that attempted to strengthen and perpetuate the economic bondage of India." This page has been archived and is no longer updated. [44] In terms of the war effort, India became a major base for American supplies sent to China, and Lend Lease operations boosted the local economy. Propaganda poster promoting the joint war-effort of the British Empire and Commonwealth, 1939. They invested heavily in up-to-date weaponry and fretted over the slowness of the British economy to resume its old role as the great lender of capital. The situation did not go as planned. On this day the initial announcement of Japan's surrender was made in Japan, and because of time zone differences it was announced in the United States, Western Europe, the Americas, the Pacific Islands, and Australia/New Zealand on 14 August 1945. (LogOut/ Europe, by contrast, they saw as a zone of economic and political weakness. (Department of Economics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, 2015), The term "Commonwealth" was popularised during World War I and became official after the. But the British still hoped that a self-governing India would remain part of their system of 'imperial defence'. Participation of British Empire and Commonwealth in World War II, British Commonwealth & Empire Campaigns of World War II, Military histories of the British Empire's colonies, dominions, mandates and protectorates, The term "British Commonwealth of Nations", popularised during. During the war, military pay scales far exceeded what civilians natives could earn, especially when food, housing and clothing allowances are included. Britain was now overshadowed by the United States and Soviet Union, its domestic economy had been seriously weakened and the Labour government had embarked on a huge and expensive programme of social reform. [35], The Viceroy Linlithgow declared that India was at war with Germany with no consultations with Indian politicians. It is plausible that India gaining independence was the real turning point in the decline of the Empire; the British government threw everything they could at Congress to convince them to stay, but Gandhi had been leading non-cooperation movements since 1920 and after 1924 the Quit India movement was well under way. Commonwealth forces administered occupation zones in Japan, Germany and Austria until 1955. Once the Empire had lost the jewel in its crown by granting independence in 1947, British officials may have lost interest in maintaining the other less profitable dominions. Ashley Jackson, "The British Empire, 19391945 " in Richard J. Churchill was outraged, refused to cooperate with Roosevelt on the issue, and threatened to resign as prime minister if Roosevelt pushed too hard. St.Catharines, Ontario: Vanwell, 2000. London used the religious tensions in India as a justification to continue its rule, saying it was needed to prevent religious massacres of the sort that did happen in 1947. ", Although it had ventures in Peurto Rico, the Philippines, and the Pacific, the United States did not approve of the European model of colonialism. Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies immediately joined the British declaration on 3 September, believing that it applied to all subjects of the Empire and Commonwealth. For context, the U.S. Census Bureau calculates the United States' landmass at 3,796,742 square miles, whichmeans that the British Empire was some 10 million square miles larger greater than the landmass of the Russian Federation, which covers "only" 6.6 million square miles. Among the worst of these was the fall of Singapore, which occurred from February 8 to 15, 1942 (via Historic UK). Nor was it simply an economic imperative. This is becauseanti-imperialism was central to Bolshevist thought. The East Africa Command was created in September 1941 to support the overstretched Middle East Command. Winston Churchill, who had replaced Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister the previous month (see Norway debate), ordered that the Middle East and the Mediterranean were of a higher priority than the Far East to defend. By 1945, however, colonies were an expensive liability for Clement Attlee's newly elected Labour government. During those savage seven days, Japanese troops led by Tomoyuki Yamashita overwhelmed the larger British force, eliminating all notions of European superiority. According to Britannica, India's independence galvanized colonies throughout the empire, including Burma, Ghana, British Malaya, Cyprus, Nigeria, Singapore, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Kenya. [8] Pre-war planners did not anticipate the fall of France: Nazi occupation, the loss of control over the Channel, and the employment of French Atlantic ports as forward bases for U-boats directly threatened Britain itself, forcing a significant reassessment of naval defence priorities. The United States' rising global influence and its opposition to imperialism made colonialism less politically viable, while Japan's wartime victories had destroyed Britain's imperial prestige. This made the assumption that Britain could send a fleet to its naval base in Singapore within two or three days of a Japanese attack, while relying on France to provide assistance in Asia via its colony in Indochina and, in the event of war with Italy, to help defend British territories in the Mediterranean. However, Churchill would lose to Clement Attlee's Labour party, who promised sweeping social reforms that included employment, housing, social security, and state healthcare. Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill called the ignominious fall of Singapore to the Japanese the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British history. However, it proved difficult to co-ordinate the defence of far-flung colonies and Commonwealth countries from simultaneous attacks by the Axis powers. Canadian troops were also sent to the defence of the colony of Newfoundland, on Canada's east coast, the closest point in North America to Germany. I just want to get rid of Nasser" (via The Guardian). According to the nonprofit websiteConstitution of India, scholarAndrew Muldoon argued that the act was, "Arguably the most significant turning point in the history of the British administration in India," and that the act aimed to, "[continue]the British control of India, and deflect the challenge to the Raj posed by Gandhi, Nehru, and the nationalist movement.". Fearing the loss of a land link[clarification needed] to the British Isles, Canada was also requested to occupy Iceland, which it did from June 1940 to the spring of 1941, following the initial British invasion.[17]. It is important to look to India to see where a large precedent for decolonisation lay. Britain was increasingly challenged by many other industrializing nations. Before the results of the postwar election were announced on July 26, 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was confident of a win. Once the war was over, the colonial soldiers were expected to simply return home and return to subordination, and the issue was that now that the people of the dominions had been outside and encountered and fought alongside their supposed betters they knew the reality. Hypocritically, Stalin was committed to extending the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, causing the Chinese to describe the Soviets as "a social imperialist superpower," according to Albert Szymanski. Britain's failure to stop the white settler revolt in Southern Rhodesia in 1965 was a huge embarrassment and drew fierce condemnation from many new Commonwealth states. [50] The powerful combination meant that Britain did not stand alone against Germany, it stood at the head of a great but fading empire. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The British at home had to come to terms with an unforeseen legacy of their imperial past - the large inflow of migrants, mostly from South Asia. Using his talents of mediation and reconciliation, Gandhi's ideas of non-violent nationalism resonated with people not just through India's rigid caste system, but across Britain, Europe, and the world. Before war, India had largely been left to pave its own way, with very few white Britons actually in India. The British Empire is a term used to describe all the places around the world that were once ruled by Britain. And as Britain planned how to move from a war economy to a peacetime economy, U.S. President Harry Truman announced the end of the two countries; lend-lease deal on September 2, 1945, which Britain had depended on for both arms and necessities. The deployment of 150,000 Africans overseas from British colonies, and the stationing of white troops in Africa itself led to revised perceptions of the Empire in Africa.[47]. If not, save something from the wreck. Britain experienced a large inflow of migrants - a legacy of its imperial past. Britain wouldhave returned to its sixteenth century state of isolation had it remained the only empirethat was permitted to remain in fact it would not have been likely that other former imperialpowers would have allowed it to. Escape from Empire: The Attlee Government and the Indian Problem by R.J.Moore (Oxford University Press, 1983), Nehru: a Political Life by J.M.Brown (Yale University Press, 2003), The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan by A.Jalal (Cambridge University Press, 1985), The Political Economy of the Raj 1914-1947: the Economics of Decolonisation in India by B.R.Tomlinson (Macmillan, 1979), European Decolonisation 1918-1981: a Survey by R.F.Holland (Macmillan, 1985), Britain and Decolonisation: the Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World by J.Darwin (Macmillan,1988), Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World by L.J.Butler, (I.B.Tauris, 2002), Anti-Colonialism in British Politics: the Left and the End of Empire, 1918-1964 by S.Howe, (Oxford University Press, 1994). [28] About 80,000 British, Australian and Indian troops became prisoners of war, joining 50,000 taken by the Japanese in the Malayan campaign. In part this difficulty was exacerbated by disagreements over priorities and objectives, as well as over the deployment and control of joint forces. Max Hastings wrote, "The British very quickly made it plain that escape was something that was reserved for white people the British, by their actions, showed they simply did not care. As Darwin pointed out: a tide had set irrevocably against European empires in general and Britains in particular. It has been suggested that Britain may have been able to rebuild its Empire, but its continued dependence on the US this time requiring assistance against the Soviets made them unable to counter their wishes and opinions, particularly Wilsonian self-determination. This was coupled with a large shift in the way the international system was ordered and where different countries stood and their prosperity. & # x27 ; s newly elected Labour government want to get rid of ''. The joint war-effort of the British Empire and Commonwealth, 1939 was savage. 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