The End of an Empire
The collapse of British imperial power - all but complete by the mid-1960s - can be traced directly to the impact of World War Two.
The catastrophic British defeats in Europe and Asia between 1940 and 1942 destroyed its financial and economic independence, the real foundation of the imperial system.
Reflective Questions:
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How come the British Empire was built for centuries but fell apart in a matter of decades?
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Why was the British quite reluctant to fight for their colonies?
End of World War Two
Britain may have emerged victorious from World War Two, but at what cost to its global empire?
Although Britain was one of the victorious allies, the defeat of Germany had been mainly the work of Soviet and American power, while that of Japan had been an almost entirely American triumph.
Britain had survived and recovered the territory lost during the war. But its prestige and authority, not to mention its wealth, had been severely reduced.
The British found themselves locked into an imperial endgame from which every exit was blocked except the trapdoor to oblivion.
(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/endofempire_overview_01.shtml)
1950s: Suez Crisis
In the 1950s, British governments struggled to achieve this post-war imperial vision. They had already reinvented the Commonwealth in 1949 in order to let India remain a republic, overturning the old rule that the British monarch must be head of state in a Commonwealth country.
They accepted the need to grant increasing self-government and then independence to some of their most valuable colonies - including Ghana and Malaya in 1957 - on the understanding that they remained in Britain's sphere of financial and strategic influence.
The British governments took up the challenge of anti-colonial revolts in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus. 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.
By the end of the decade, things were not going well. Staying in the Middle East had led step-by-step to the confrontation with President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, and the disastrous decision to seek his overthrow by force in collusion with Israel.
The 1956 Suez Crisis was a savage revelation of Britain's financial and military weakness and destroyed much of what remained of Britain's influence in the Middle East.
In the colonial territories, more active interference in social and economic matters, with a view to speeding the pace of development, had aroused wide opposition and strengthened nationalist movements.
It was becoming much harder for Britain to control the rate of political change, especially where the presence of settlers (as in Kenya and the Rhodesias) sharpened conflicts over land.
Britain's position as the third great power and 'deputy leader' of the Western Alliance was threatened by the resurgence of France and West Germany, who jointly presided over the new European Economic Community (EEC).
Britain's claim on American support, the indispensable prop of imperial survival, could no longer be taken for granted. And Britain's own economy, far from accelerating, was stuck in a rut.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/endofempire_overview_01.shtml
1947: Partition of India
An early symptom of the weakness of the empire was Britain's withdrawal from India in 1947.
During World War Two, the British had mobilised India's resources for their imperial war effort. They crushed the attempt of Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress to force them to 'quit India' in 1942.
Nonetheless, in an earlier bid to win Congress support, Britain had promised to give India full independence once the war was over.
Within months of the end of the war, it was glaringly obvious that Britain lacked the means to defeat a renewed mass campaign by the Congress. Its officials were exhausted and troops were lacking.
But the British still hoped that a self-governing India would remain part of their system of 'imperial defence'. For this reason, Britain was desperate to keep India (and its army) united. These hopes came to nothing.
By the time that the last viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, arrived in India, Congress and its leader Jawaharlal Nehru had begun to accept that unless they agreed to partition, they risked a descent into chaos and communal war before power could be transferred from British into Indian hands.
It was left to Mountbatten to stage a rapid handover to two successor governments (India and Pakistan) before the ink was dry on their post-imperial frontiers.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/endofempire_overview_01.shtml
1960s: Loss of the Colonies
With conditions as they stood, it was now becoming increasingly difficult to maintain even the semblance of British world power. In the 1960s, British governments attempted forlornly to make bricks without straw.
Britain tried and failed twice to enter the EEC, hoping partly to galvanise its stagnant economy, partly to smash the Franco-German 'alliance'.
To avoid being trapped in a costly struggle with local nationalist movements, Britain backed out of most of the remaining colonies with unseemly haste. As late as 1959, it had publicly scheduled a degree of self-government for Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. All became independent between 1961 and 1963.
British leaders gamely insisted, and no doubt believed, that Britain would remain at the 'top table' of world power - a status guaranteed by its nuclear deterrent and its continuing influence in the ex-colonial world, and symbolised by the Commonwealth which the ex-colonies had joined.
The situation did not go as planned. 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.
In South East Asia, protecting the new federation of Malaysia against Indonesian aggression became more and more costly.
Meanwhile the British economy staggered from crisis to crisis and the burden became unsustainable. Devaluation of the pound in November 1967 was followed within weeks by the decision to withdraw Britain's military presence east of Suez.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/endofempire_overview_01.shtml