This is a book of history on a global scale – encompassing the destinies of dozens of now independent countries, once part of the British Empire. The title of the book is misleading. The British Empire did not decline after its defeat by the Americans at Yorktown in 1781. It expanded, especially in India and Africa. It was the two world wars that changed the trend.
In 1945, 700 million lived in British colonies. By 1965 that number had fallen to a mere 5 million. But, in many respects, the British Empire in 1945 was already dead, but still standing.
In 1914, Britain could confidently declare war on Germany and Austria without consulting its Dominions, and correctly anticipate that they would all follow loyally. But by 1922 Canada was confident enough to refuse to join a deeply indebted Britain’s military adventures in Turkey.
In the First World War, India paid for and equipped out of its own resources the 200,000 troops it put into the field along side the British. By the Second World War, even the Indian colonial administration insisted that Britain itself meet many of the bills. In the interwar years, British exports were undercut by Japanese goods even in its own colonies.
India was the heart of the imperial enterprise. It provided vast profits and markets for Britain. The defence of its route to India explained why Britain felt it needed to dominate Southern Africa, Egypt, and the Mediterranean as well.
Many sincerely felt that the Empire was a benefit to humanity. Joseph Chamberlain believed the Anglo Saxons were “the greatest governing race the world has ever seen”. The Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury calculated that allowing European powers to divide up Africa kept them distracted, and thus preserved peace in Europe between 1870 and 1914. He may have been right.
But the price paid by the colonial peoples was very high. Brendon claims that genocide was committed in Tasmania. China was forced to open its markets to Indian opium to the detriment of its people. He calculates that Bengal alone contributed £1 billion to the British Treasury in the years before Waterloo.
The best land was seized for the White settlers in Kenya. Discriminatory tax systems were put in place to force locals to work for the colonists, and as late as 1930, a Land Apportionment Act in Southern Rhodesia restricted 1 million Africans to 28 million acres, while granting 0.05 million Whites 48 million acres. This inequity led to starvation, and has poisoned attitudes in Zimbabwe for generations.
As one Kikuyu elder told Fenner Brockway MP in the 1950s “When someone steals your land, especially if it is near, you can never forget”. This emotional reality, familiar in Irish history, explains the present difficulties making peace between Palestinians and Israelis – in a territory that was also once a British mandate. Practicality and common sense go out the window once the sense of loss is deep enough.
What modern eyes would see as racist attitudes were present. A political rival said of Winston Churchill’s view of Indian independence that “any form of self Government for coloured peoples raises in him a wholly uncontrollable complex”. If Churchill had won the 1945 General Election, India would not have gained its independence by 1947. He would have resisted it, and the consequences would probably have been worse than what happened.
Once India did gain its independence, the strategic logic for retaining expensive colonial outposts on the route to India disappeared. Yet Britain struggled to keep the Suez Canal, Cyprus and Aden because, as Piers Brendon points out, “the Empire had gone, but the emotions associated with it survived, like phantom feelings after an amputation”.
On the other hand, there was always a strong sense that the empire was a trust. Real efforts were made to spread democratic values. The first Asian country to enjoy adult suffrage was Ceylon, as a result of recommendations of a commission chaired by an Irish man, Lord Donoughmore.
The Irish were deeply involved in Britain’s imperial story. A quarter of the officers and half the European troops in the Indian army were Irish. The Governor who justified the Amritsar massacre was a Catholic from Solohead in Tipperary, and the last Governor of Burma was from Cootehill.
This book greatly helps us to understand the modern world. But it is also entertaining and full of colourful anecdotes and embarrassing quotations.
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