Britain on shifting grounds: how the sun finally set on the empire,
19th century-1960’s
Cours de Flavien Bardet, Bordeaux III
NOTE : Ce cours répond directement à celui de M.Cassagnau. Il est vivement conseillé de
comprendre les deux parties du CM comme formant une histoire cohérente. Les sujets donnés
peuvent librement faire appel à chacune des parties du CM, voire mobiliser des
connaissances annexes
LECTURES I & II. INTRODUCTION : THE STATE OF THE NATIONS, OR THE
EMPIRE IN AND BEFORE 1945
1585
1627
1661
1757
1786
1795
1816
1821
1830
1839
1847
1852
1862
1871
1877
1882
1886
1889
1895
1900
1909
1922
1941
1948
1961
1964
1968
1979
1997
If the British historian John Seeley is to be trusted, the British Empire had been
acquired through the centuries in a “fit of absent-mindedness”, i.e. without a definite plan
from Westminster (Parliament) or Whitehall (Government). Here above is a broad vision of
the evolution of the territorial gains of England/Great Britain throughout the 16th-20th
centuries, a vision that gives a least a general idea of the topics we are going to study in the
subsequent lectures. Three main periods can be distinguished:
- the first one running through the whole 16th-17th centuries and ending precisely in
1783 (the so-called FIRST EMPIRE of the classic historians of the British Empire)
- the second one running through the whole 19th century and ending after the First
World War, where a period of relative decline can be noticed
- the third, being the object of this course, starts in the mid-1940’s, and ends in 1997
with the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese Government under Tony Blair (see Alastair
Campbell, The Alastair Campbell Diaries, vol.2, Power and the People 1997-1999, London,
2010, pp. 75-80).
Graph 1. Quantitative evolution of British imperial possessions, based on a 85 reference
points projection. Cross references compiled from data in The Oxford History of the British
Empire, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire, and British Imperialism
(Robert Johnson, 2003)
1
A. BRITAIN AND THE “ABSENT-MINDED” IMPERIALISTS: THREE EMPIRES
IN ONE
Following the distinction established by the main historians of the empire – both
classics and contemporaries –, we will first argue the case for two different empires, to which
we’ll conveniently add one later. From the outset it must be made clear that the distinction
between so-called “first” and “second” empires was primarily a chronological one:
- the first empire was said to have taken shape in the late 1580’s in the West Indies and
to have ended precisely in the year 1783, when the 13 American colonies broke free from
their nearly-two-century-old links of subservience to England.
- the second empire was thus simply the one that sprouted out from the failure of the
American experience. It covered a period roughly running through two centuries and had
started at a period broadly corresponding to the birth of the industrial revolution.
Convenient though this division may seem, it doesn’t take into account the many
upheavals imperial policies went through between, say, 1600 and 1945. The graphic itself
makes it visibly clear that a mere chronological explanation of such complex phenomena as
empire-building is not enough. Indeed, a chronological survey of the empire would only be
misleading, since what actually matters when studying politics or international relations is not
“WHAT & WHEN”, but rather “HOW & WHY”. Consequently, we will try to avoid mere
chronological developments and focus rather on general trends and movements, even if
unfortunately, dates, data and punctual events will also have to be brought into the picture
from time to time.
So instead of two empires following each other simply as time ran, wouldn’t it be
possible to establish more convenient, more elaborate and more accurate distinctions? Here
again, historians are to be called to our rescue. Fortunately, the works of such great souls as –
just the once won’t hurt, in chronological order – John Seeley, Frederick Lugard, Eric
Hobsbawm, Ronald Robinson, James Gallagher, William Roger Louis or Glen Balfour-Paul
to name but a few are there to guide us. Broadly speaking, we will discard once and for all the
time element and focus rather on the technical/administrative one. We will thus be allowed to
pave the way for a three-dimensional vision of the realities the terms “British Empire”
covered.
1. THE “UNITED NATIONS OF GREATER BRITAIN”, OR THE “WHITE” COLONIES OF
SETTLEMENT
One remark must be made from the outset: ALL THREE EMPIRES LIVED
SIDE BY SIDE, i.e. there was NO chronological succession of different forms of empire
(from X to Y, 1st empire, then from Y to Z another….. NO). Even though chronologically,
the so-called “white” colonies (definition to follow) weren’t the first to be implemented by
Britain, they constitute a first broad form of empire-building that nearly outlived all other
forms of administrative management in conquered territories. Historically then, the first
established British settlements were plantation colonies in the West Indies – and later in parts
of America and even in…..Ireland! We won’t really have the time to deal with either the West
Indies or Ireland (studied in other classes by other teachers), but we’ll have to say a few
words about America, being the first and for a long time the most important of these so-called
“white” colonies. But before we proceed, a question still needs to be asked: why “white”?
2
“WHITE” because, as John Seeley explained in his first course of lectures on The
Expansion of England (1884), these colonies of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
or South Africa had been conquered through emigration from England. Hence the names
that stuck, “WHITE” COLONIES (colonies peopled by whites from Europe),
COLONIES OF SETTLEMENT, or compounds based on these two expressions (WHITE
COLONIES OF SETTLEMENT/SETTLEMENT COLONIES).
3500000
3000000
2500000
2000000
1500000
1000000
500000
0
1901-1930
1853-1900
1815-1852
1815-1852
1853-1900
1901-1930
ABOVE: EVOLUTION OF BRITISH EMIGRATION BY DESTINATION (adapted
from Bruno MARNOT, La Mondialisation au XIXème siècle, 2012)
3
BELOW: DISTRIBUTION OF BRITISH EMIGRATION BY IMPERIAL ZONES,
COMPARISONS MID 19TH CENTURY/EARLY 20TH (adapted from Bruno MARNOT,
2012)
OVERALL BRITISH EMIGRATION,
1815-1852
USA
CANADA
AUSTRALASIA
REST (SOUTH AFRICA,
EUROPE, ASIA)
OVERALL BRITISH EMIGRATION,
1900-1930
USA
CANADA
AUSTRALASIA
REST (SOUTH AFRICA,
EUROPE, ASIA)
The idea behind these expressions is self-explanatory: such settlement colonies were
supposed to offer an OUTLET FOR THE SURPLUS POPULATION OF ENGLAND. At
a less prosaic level, they were also supposed to provide for the expansion of the “English
race” and its political and economic ideas. Seeley for example explains that a nation is like an
equation of which the formula runs pretty much as follows: COMMUNITY OF BLOOD +
COMMUNITY OF RELIGION + COMMUNITY OF INTEREST=NATION. Seeley has
sufficiently been proved wrong by history for us to indulge in destroying his argument.
Suffice it to say that the 4 colonies of settlement (after 1783) formed a network of
Englishness/Britishness around the globe, hence the now famous moniker of “GREATER
BRITAIN” so dear to the ears of late-Victorian imperialists. Later in the 19th century, the
very expression of Greater Britain acquired a meaning close to that of “the British Empire”
and was rhetorically opposed to the concept of “LITTLE ENGLANDISM” put forward by
the “LITTLE ENGLANDERS”: one was either a partisan of Greater Britain or a Little
Englander according to their position concerning the future of the Empire. Little Englanders
in this sense were opposed to further developments abroad and argued for more money
invested home to improve defence, social rights, etc.
There were thus, after the loss of America, 4 colonies of settlement (AUSTRALIA,
NZ, CANADA, and SOUTH AFRICA). All four had at least three common denominators,
something we can only hope the laws of mathematics will excuse us for.
4
-1: AT THE TIME OF CONQUEST, local populations, be they Aborigines,
Indians, Zulus or Maoris had shown little resistance (though the Maoris in this instance
proved to be an exception) to European advance. Schematically, the colonies of settlement
had been won over populations that had the disadvantage of being few, weak, and poorly
organised militarily and politically (no strong alliance between different cities or peoples were
to be found for instance).
-2: DURING COLONIAL OCCUPATION, these colonies peopled by Englishmen
(and Scots) had benefited from a special status, that of DOMINION. During the second half
of the 19th century all but South Africa, who had to wait until 1907, were granted SELFGOVERNMENT. Concretely speaking, this meant that Great Britain only retained decisionmaking powers so far as international relationships and trade were concerned. Even defence
was a devolved power in a self-governing colony: settlement colonies had to pay for their own
defence, which of course alleviated the burden of empire for Westminster.
-3: ADMINISTRATIVE ARRANGEMENTS were taken to provide for equal rights
being granted to emigrants from Britain. There was thus an internal organization that copied
precisely what was customary or legal in Britain. For example, the law that applied there was
the British law, all the subjects were British subjects and they even had a Prime Minister (then
named a GOVERNOR) and assemblies (see Lugard, The Dual Mandate, pp. 36-8).
The idea behind the foundation and the establishment of settlement colonies was thus
to offer opportunities for British emigrants in exchange for trade returns and a global
influence. Frederick Lugard in 1922 was thus allowed to present this empire as the “UNITED
NATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN”, with Great Britain only being “prima inter pares” or
“first among equals” (Lugard, The Dual Mandate, pp. 40-1). This first version of the
British Empire was effectively shaken by the American Revolution, so that after 1783 the
British government tried to understand what went wrong there and tended to smooth its
policies towards its different dependencies. It would be wrong though to consider that a first
empire died in 1783, since most white colonies only cut their ties with Britain much later, in
1982 (Canada), and 1986 (NZ, Australia).
2. EMPIRE AS A BUSINESS, OR THE FREE-TRADE IMPERIALISM RATIONALE
Once more, one thing has to be made clear from the outset when dealing with “FREETRADE IMPERIALISM”, an expression that was popularized by the British historians
RONALD ROBINSON & JOHN GALLAGHER in their much-appraised AFRICA AND
THE VICTORIANS: THE OFFICIAL MIND OF IMPERIALISM of 1961. If chronology
would here again appear to be misleading – since free-trade was not implemented before
Robert Peel’s first free-trade budgets of the 1840’s –, it’s partly owing to the fact that we
will not conceive free-trade in its literal sense. Thus, when dealing with our second type of
empire, the notion of free-trade will be for convenience’s sake extended to that of economic
profit.
If we accept our postulate that there were not two empires but three, and if we accept
the idea that the white colonies aimed at offering outlets for surplus populations and the
extension of Englishness, then it would be quite simple to explain our second type of empire.
This second type of empire-building would be one in which economic profits and efficiency
were paramount. Our cases in point would be India – and most of Asia by the way – and –
parts of – Africa.
5
But first things first, as just a pinch of history won’t hurt. Some historians, when
dealing with the British Empire, do not even take into account the pre-1815 period. 1815 was
both the year of Waterloo – Wellington’s victory over Napoleon, or the end of the Napoleonic
Wars in Europe – and the end of the “second American war of independence” which marked
the decisive exclusion of Britain from America (war of 1812-1815). At that time, an “empire
of free-trade” could hardly be said to exist, since free-trade was only to be implemented 3
decades later. However, some sure signs of a future development in this sense were already
salient. That is why we’ll rather talk of “empire as a business” before Victoria (Queen 18371901), and only apply the expression “free-trade imperialism” to the second half of the
19th century. Were there any significant differences between our first kind of empire and our
second, and can’t these differences be made clear otherwise than through recourses to
chronology? This we’ll endeavour to expose in the next paragraphs.
We will take two conspicuous examples to try to highlight the main differences
between settlement colonies and non-white colonies. Our first example will be India, but the
model could be applied to Burma, the Straits Settlements (Malaya) and most African colonies
(South Africa and the Rhodesias excepted). Now contrary to Canada or any other settlement
colony, India:
-1: BEFORE COLONIZATION PROPER, i.e. before the 17th century, was already
a densely populated ensemble of territories. India was not a united country but their existed
alliances and agreements between its different components. Indians had leaders, armies, and
rich cultures inherited from both Brahmanism and Islam. Conquest through emigration was
therefore inconceivable, as was conquest by the sword.
-2: WAS NOT ACTUALLY CONQUERED BY ENGLAND, but by a trade
company. Historians wandered – some even wondered at – how a mere chartered company –
the East India Company – came to assume responsibility over some 200 million people (in
the mid-19th century). In 1600, just as Elizabeth’s England had beaten the Spanish (1588) on
the seas, a charter was granted to the EIC for trade monopoly in India. Little by little, as the
firm grew in strength an importance, it came to assume military powers. Whitehall only came
to supersede the EIC, which effectively dismantled, after the dramatic but somehow limited
Indian Mutiny of 1857. Only then could it be said that England ruled over India.
-3: ADMINISTRATIVELY SPEAKING, was not a self-governing colony. It was, in
Seeley’s words, “a dependency”: Britain thus had “four Dominions and a dependency”
(Seeley, 18-9). The law that applied was not British law, but a compound of local customs and
adapted English rights. More specifically, it only took a very limited staff to rule such
colonies: in 1917, there were some 300 million Indians for 1300 staff (Robert Johnson, 5).
The English tried as much as possible to cooperate with local elites and local chiefs to keep
trade going as cheaply as possible, which meant less army, less administration, and the costs
of defence being borne by India.
-4: WAS NOT AN OUTLET FOR SURPLUS POPULATION, BUT FOR
SURPLUS PRODUCTION, which is of course the main and most important difference with
the self-governing Dominions. Briefly speaking, India was used as a giant reserve of raw
materials. With the advent of free-trade in the 1840’s (NO CUSTOMS TARIFFS ON
IMPORTS OR EXPORTS), this meant that products such as cotton, cloth, spices or tea
came free of charge to Britain. There, they were transformed and manufactured and partly
sent back to India, still free of charge. As a result, they were sold on the Indian market for
cheaper than original Indian products such as cloths. One consequence was the rapid ruin of
India’s secondary production (manufactures). India sold raw materials to England that she
6
had to buy back later from England, while her own production was too expensive for
Indians to buy.
In such colonies, identified by Eric Hobsbawm as “the second world” – as opposed
to the “first world” of modern Western colonial powers + Japan – it was said that “THE
FLAG FOLLOWED TRADE”. In turn, trade forced the flag to offer its protection, mainly
in the form of a distant, but nonetheless powerful, ubiquitous and efficient naval organization.
The Royal Navy offered its protection both to the merchant ships and to local administrations:
it acted as a constant, albeit nearly invisible, threat. The notion of PRESTIGE was thus often
put forward by London to explain Britannia’s need “TO RULE THE WAVES”.
Our second conspicuous example is Africa. There, the same pattern as in India
developed, albeit much later. The actual colonization of Africa did not properly begin before
the 1870’s-1880’s – though South Africa and Sierra Leone were two counter-examples.
Frederick Lugard thus claimed that British colonial policy in Africa aimed at:
“leaving the native population free to manage their own affairs through
their own rulers, proportionately to their degree of advancement, under
the guidance of the British staff, and subject to the laws and policy of the
administration.” (Lugard, 94)
There was undoubtedly a racist element in such colonial policies, since only those
colonies peopled by white Europeans were deemed advanced enough to be able to administer
themselves properly. Before the end of the 19th century, Africa was still the “dark
continent”, a place of myths and legends best exemplified by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness (1902) or such short stories as An Outpost of Progress or Karain (1898).
As Eric Hobsbawm reckons in The Age of Empire (1987), geographical discoveries
had been slow in Africa, and it was not before the 1870’s that the whole continent became
fairly well known to “the first world” of Empire-builders in Europe (Hobsbawm, 13-4).
This may come as a shock, but Africa in the 1870’s-1880’s was not even considered a
continent, but a country just as…..India was! (See Lugard, 64-5). Now although there were
noticeable differences between the gradual colonisations of India and Africa, a few common
features still stand out. We will see two important differences, and two common traits:
TWO DIFFERENCES:
-1: THE DEMOGRAPHIC ELEMENT, which seriously contrasted with the Indian
situation. Although populations were neither very organized nor militarily strong, two main
elements prevented Britain from establishing “white colonies” throughout Africa (though
remember that South Africa was one such “white” colony). As WS Churchill explained in
My African Journey (1908), CLIMATE was one such element (tropical climate meant
diseases unknown to Europeans, or at least to which no real vaccine or remedy existed). But
the real element that forbade the foundation of British “white” colonies in Africa was
INTERNATIONAL IMPERIAL COMPETITION/RIVALRY, notably with the French
and the Germans.
-2: CONTRARY TO INDIA, Africa was only conquered relatively late. The
Europeans did not massively arrive before the SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA that followed
the Berlin Congress of 1885. To cut a long story short, in Berlin the French, the Germans, the
British, the Italians and the Belgians decided to carve Africa into spheres of influence and
then into colonies. It has been argued that the British in this sense were only “reluctant
7
imperialists” who had been forced to invest (politically) in Africa in order to check the
advance of their European rivals.
TWO COMMON FEATURES:
-1: THE FLAG FOLLOWS TRADE. The new diplomatic concepts at the heart of
the Berlin Congress, enshrined in Article 6 of the Berlin Act, were those of the spheres of
influence and of the Hinterland. The HINTERLAND theory provided for the acquisition of
the interior of a country once the occupation of the coastland had been recognized. Concretely
speaking, it meant that once a country had gained a footing on the coast, it could claim the
entire region as his. The idea behind the SPHERE OF INFLUENCE that the British Foreign
Office specially developed for the Congress forbade a formal occupation of a territory without
the formal consent of the population in question. If a country did not formally occupy a
region, it could not claim this region as part of its sphere of influence. Of course, treaties were
constantly violated and territories were more often than not gained by crook.
-2: EMPIRE SEEN AS A BUSINESS, since most regions of Africa – those that were
“conquered” by Britain – were first the results of enterprises led by chartered companies.
Three such chartered companies operated in the late 19th century, with mitigated success: the
Royal Niger Company, the Imperial British East African Company and the British
South African Company of Cecil Rhodes. Only the last one of these actually turned out to
be successful.
All in all at first, the Crown was quite reluctant to invest in Africa, seen as a diversion
from more serious business in Asia. Competition with France and Germany forced Britain to
declare protectorates and to defend zones of influence for which at first she did not care much.
Britain concentrated on the Hinterland theory, i.e. tried as much as possible to avoid
continental possessions that she rather left to private chartered companies. If we had to sum
up the difference between “white” colonies and Asia/Africa, we could say that the former had
cultural/political aims while the latter rather constituted an economic empire. Populations of
Africa or Asia were thus deemed to “backward” to be allowed self-government, and a very
convenient rationale for the economic empire was to say that Britain was only present to
develop trade and share its benefits with her African or Asia “children”.
3. THE ROUTE TO INDIA AND THE INFORMAL EMPIRE
Nowadays, historians of the empire are keen to use the oh! so convenient expression
popularized by John Seeley in the late 1880’s, that of absent-minded imperialists. In fact,
what Seeley actually wrote runs thus: “We seem, as it were, to have conquered and
peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind” (Seeley, The Expansion of England, p.
17). What was meant by that is that there was no plan implemented from London to paint the
whole world pink. Now of course if willing to simplify things, it should still be possible to
find a convenient way to explain the British Empire and to find common denominators to
explain the conquest of India, Egypt, the Sudan or Cyprus. If we accept that a first empire was
mainly political and that a second empire was mainly economic, our third empire would be
mainly strategic.
Britain was said to hold an INFORMAL EMPIRE (French: empire informel) in the
region because unlike in India or in the Dominions, she was hardly to be seen there. She was
not really physically present in the Middle East (only in Egypt): she had no army or
administration in the Turkish Empire. Still, her presence was felt in the fields of politics and
economics: like China today, she had invested in the national debts of Turkey and other
8
powers of the region and she could then more or less dictate her policy to Constantinople (the
then Turkish Capital). Britain had a few territorial possessions in the Middle East and in the
Mediterranean (Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Aden [now Yemen]) but these possessions were
only NAVAL STATIONS, meant to guarantee that no other European power could grab a
slice of the region and threaten the British trade routes between London and Bombay.
The Middle East – an expression invented by a British Army General named Thomas
Edward Gordon in 1900 – was before the First World War under OTTOMAN – i.e.
TURKISH – suzerainty. It means that what we know today as SYRIA, THE LEBANON,
ISRAEL/PALESTINE, IRAQ, JORDAN, AND TURKEY of course were all part of the
same Turkish empire. All these territories lay between the Mediterranean and the Indian
Ocean. Europe had so far not manifested a real keen interest for this desert and barren region.
Then, by the 1870’s, suddenly everything changed.
Opened in 1869, the SUEZ CANAL in Egypt allowed merchant as well as war ships
to shorten the sea distances between Europe and Asia. Before the canal, ships had to sail
round Africa through the Cape of Good Hope. In 1874, Disraeli bought a majority of the
shares of the Canal: England then considered herself as the sole owner of Suez. In other words
in 1869, the CENTRE OF BRITISH INTERESTS AND POWER SHIFTED FROM
THE ATLANTIC TO THE MEDITERRANEAN.
Map: The British Empire, 1915. Avalon Project, Yale University website (2011)
After that, two things definitely changed the destinies of the Middle East:
- 1. The First World War: nearly as soon as war broke out in Europe in the summer
1914, Turkey sealed its fate by choosing to side with Germany against France and Britain.
Britain was of course adamant that it should protect the Suez Canal against Turkish
aggression (remember that Egypt had common territorial frontiers with the Turkish Empire),
and was thus determined to bring down the Ottoman Empire. France on the other hand wanted
9
to develop an “all-Arab” empire, from Morocco to the Lebanon. France had invested
massively in the region before the war, and claimed to be the international protector of the
Catholics and other Christian sects (Copts, Maronites) dwelling in the East. France and
Britain thus decided to share the spoils of the Turkish Empire as soon as 1915-1916.
During the war, England promised to help the Arabs of Syria and Arabia (now Saudi
Arabia) create a great independent Arab republic in Syria to replace former Turkish rule. They
sent the now famous LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (THOMAS EDWARD LAWRENCE) to
negotiate an alliance between the Arabs of the region and England (these negotiations became
known as the HUSSEIN-McMAHON CORRESPONDENCE OF 1915-1916). An Arab
uprising actually took place; the Turks were ousted from the region, but, as often in European
diplomacy – especially at the times – Britain proved unable to keep her promise to help create
an independent Arab state.
Indeed, while T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” was leading the anti-Turkish Arab rebellion
in Syria and in Arabia, back in London, the Foreign Office was negotiating with France to
share the region after the war. The SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT (1916) provided for a
redistribution of the Turkish Empire between France and England (+ Italy and Russia):
the great Arab independent State was dead.
Still, having betrayed the Arabs’ dream was not enough for perfidious Albion: she
needed to make sure that after the war, she would not be hindered in Suez by the French.
England then chose to betray France as well, and launched new negotiations for the future of
the Turkish Empire, this time with the JEWISH ZIONIST MOVEMENT. Zionism
(French: SIONISME) was at first a political movement meant to protect the Eastern Jewish
communities that suffered from oppression and sometimes massacres – pogroms – in Russia,
Poland (and Romania notably) in the late 1880’s-early 1900’s. Zionism was weak as a
movement, but the plight of the Jews awoke British politicians to the need to react against
tyranny in Eastern Europe. During the war, many Jews turned to Germany: indeed,
because Russia was fighting against Germany, and because Russia was seen as the main
oppressor of the Jews worldwide, the Zionists were rather reluctant to join with Britain and
France (who were fighting alongside Tsarist Russia against Germany). London was thus
afraid to see European Jews help Germany. So England decided to help Zionism in order to
show the Jews in Europe that it was in their best interest to support the Allies. In 1917, the
British Foreign Secretary, ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR thus promised to let the Jewish
Zionists erect a “NATIONAL HOME” in Palestine. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
OF 1917 was for Britain a means to guarantee that the Egyptian frontiers (and so, the
Suez Canal) would be free from the Arabs, from the Turks, and from the French.
Zionism was back then a weak movement, without an army and nearly no money – much less
than France, Turkey or Germany for instance. It represented no threat to Britain – or so
British politicians thought. In 1917 then, Britain thought she had found a way to discard both
French and Arab claims to the region bordering Suez.
- 2. The Mandates (1919-1922): After the war, the Victors put their war-plans to the
test. Britain of course had to renegotiate with her Allies – France essentially – but she also
had to take into account the position of the USA. The USA was then fiercely isolationist and
staunchly anti-imperialist. The American President, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, was not happy
at all with the way European powers had resorted to “secret diplomacy” during the war. The
world was appalled by the level of destruction and barbarism displayed between 1914 and
1918 (on the Eastern front, in Verdun and in Belgium) and thought it was high time
something was done to prevent such dreadful destructions occurring again in the future. The
LEAGUE OF NATIONS (or LON, in French: SOCIETE DES NATIONS or SDN) was
created and a new concept was born.
10
THE MANDATES – being this new concept – were meant to be a substitute for the
old-fashioned European colonies. A mandate was a territory placed under the supervision of a
MANDATORY POWER: such powers, represented by the Victors – i.e. mainly France
and Britain, since Russia had become devoted to anti-imperialism since the October
Revolution – confiscated the colonies of the Vanquished – i.e. mainly Germany and
Turkey – and administered them on behalf of the international community. A Mandate
was not meant to be a permanent possession. Mandatory powers were only meant to be guides
towards SELF-DETERMINATION, another concept matured in America during the war.
Briefly speaking, self-determination implied that once conditions – economic + political – had
improved in the Mandates, the Mandatory powers would declare them independent.
All in all, this meant that after the war, both German and Turkish colonies in Africa
and in the Middle East were confiscated and entrusted to France and Britain: thus England
greatly extended her territorial possessions, gaining MESOPOTAMIA (NOW IRAQ),
PALESTINE (NOW ISRAEL) AND TRANS-JORDAN (NOW JORDAN).
Consequently, as shown in the graph, 1922, the year all Mandates came into effect,
marked the climax of the British Empire – geographically speaking. Paradoxically, the same
period was marked by international pressures – mainly from America – aiming at a steady
colonial disengagement. From then on, Britain found herself on a slippery slope that was to
carry her to the Second World War: this time, neither the French nor the Americans would
help her consolidate the Empire.
C. FORCES OF PROGRESS, FORCES OF REACTION
-THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS (French: Société des Nations or SDN):
The League of Nations was founded after the First World War (1919) as a kind of
modern-day UN. Its aim was first and foremost to substitute gunboat diplomacy (French:
diplomatie de la canonnière) for international arbitration and to avoid further conflicts on the
scale of WWI. So far as decolonization was concerned, the LON was pledged to “SELFDETERMINATION”, an American concept dating from 1917. In 1917 indeed, the
American President, Thomas Woodrow WILSON delivered his 14 POINTS speech in
which he called for the steady downgrading of European imperial appetites.
For America, WWI was not actually a “world” war, but rather a European war, and an
imperial European war at that. Self-determination meant that European powers had to accept
the rights of imperial populations to be free from their rule in the long-run. It was the empires
of Europe that had caused the war and the loss of American lives, and WILSON INSISTED
THAT THE COLONIES GAINED FROM THE VANQUISHED (TURKEY AND
GERMANY) BE TURNED NOT INTO COLONIES BUT INTO LEAGUE OF
NATIONS MANDATES. America in this instance – although it may sound strange to our
ears nowadays – refused to be granted territories in the Middle East, notably in Palestine (that
Britain was quite reluctant to administer).
Two problems: Only the Victors were welcome to the League; and the American
Congress refused to take part in the LON adventure – which anyway was short-lived.
-THE USA:
It has to be noticed that the USA, before WWI but even before WWII, had been happy
to remain ISOLATIONIST. The US had reluctantly intervened in 1917, using the pretext of
the sinking of the Lusitania to declare war on Germany – the same happened in 1941 in Pearl
Harbour, even though Roosevelt was probably more prone to fight the Nazis than Wilson had
been to fight the “Huns”. This professed isolationism went hand in hand with a form of anti-
11
imperialism – i.e. old-style, European imperialism – that tended to encourage Britain to get rid
of her colonial ties and to substitute it for a “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP”.
-THE USSR:
As soon as 1917, Bolshevik Russia, later the USSR, pledged to abandon imperialism
and to fight imperial nations wherever they dwelt under the sun. Lenin in 1916 had published
a pamphlet entitled Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism in which he explained –
briefly speaking – that imperialism was only capitalist exploitation of the working-class
revisited. Once the working-classes – Proletariat – had been crushed at home, it was time for
capitalists to turn to the empire to decrease their costs of production. Therefore, imperialism
was nothing but the exportation of capitalist exploitation abroad, bringing forward the ruin of
the production capacities of colonised countries. Imperialism was a means to artificially
maintain production costs at a low level, while increasing productivity through brutal imperial
management of overseas workers. After WWII, the USSR continued to maintain the illusion
that it would fight wars of national liberation against Western imperialist countries, but the
fights put up by communist Russia were essentially aimed at the USA. So far as British
decolonization is concerned, the USSR only came to clash indirectly with Britain. In Egypt,
before and during the Suez crisis of 1956 for example, the Egyptian leader Nasser used the
threat of a Soviet intervention to prompt the USA and Britain to scale down their demands for
a British-guaranteed Suez Canal.
-LIBERALISM & LABOUR:
The first criticisms of imperialism held that the colonies could not be left into the
hands of capitalists – remember that imperialism was often the plaything of private chartered
companies –, and that they should be supervised by international bodies so that imperial
benefits could be shared equally between colonised and colonisers. This form of criticism was
of course greatly influenced by Marxism – JOHN HOBSON in England (1902). Writers such
as HOBSON or MOREL (for Africa) thus paved the way for the notion of IMPERIAL
TRUSTEESHIP of the post-WWII era. This first form of Marxist-inspired criticism came
into the picture after the Boer War (in South Africa, 1899-1902, in which Britain fought
Dutch settlers who were indirectly supported by Germany): hence it happened that such forms
of liberal minds were accused of being unpatriotic and of siding with Germany against
England.
In 1900, Labour was but a weak political movement that was rather interested in the
improvement of the natives’ lot rather than in an outright condemnation of imperialism per se.
After WWI, Labour was more interested in bringing down the costs of imperial defence and
in bringing about social progress at home. Because they had only held power for limited
times, Labour politicians did not succeed in improving natives’ rights (notably in Africa), and
it was not before the Labour victory of 1945 that things changed. The new Secretary of State
for the Colonies, Arthur Creech-Jones, was for example an imperial reformer who launched a
programme of economic modernization and agricultural reforms in the dependent empire.
However, even well-known progressist figures such as George Orwell agreed on the idea that
anti-imperialism in England was based on moral principles rather than economic exploitation
after WWII: “[Without the Empire, England would be] a cold and unimportant little island
where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes”
(G.Orwell, quoted in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. V, p. 208).
There was thus, even after WWII, some kind of consensus in the Labour ranks as to the
historic importance of the Empire for the past and present well-being of the working classes,
all this in perfect contradiction with the Marxist-Hobsonian vision of the early 20th century.
12
-NATIONALISM(S):
Pascal Lorot and François Thual thus explained in La Géopolitique (2002) the
concepts of nationalism and nation:
“La dissolution de la forme féodale de l’Etat et de la société a laissé place à
un autre mode d’identification collective qui est celui de la conscience
nationale. Cela est d’autant plus flagrant lorsqu’il s’agit de pays qui ont
dû mener une lutte de libération nationale contre un oppresseur qui était,
en général, un empire.
[La] nation est d’abord un phénomène intellectuel qui se polarise autour
de la récupération d’une mémoire perdue, de la réécriture d’une histoire,
de la fixation d’une langue”. (Lorot et Thual, 68)
Obviously, we’re pretty far from Seeley’s imperialist definition of the nation as community
of blood + community of religion + community of interest. This explanation by the French
Lorot and Thual is thus principally a social vision of nationalism, close to the vision of a
British historian such as Eric Hobsbawm: the industrialization of the world in the 19th century
created the basis for new identities to rise and to be expressed and professed throughout the
world.
So far as the British Empire is concerned, the most serious sorts of nationalisms England
faced in its history were based on either religion or/and irrendentism:
- Religion:
So far as religious nationalisms were concerned, the most influential came from the
Arab-Muslim world, for obvious geopolitical reasons. First, the Arab-Muslim world, until the
end of the First World War, had more or less always been submitted to some form or other of
imperialism (Turkish-Ottoman, British, French). If Islam could hardly be seen as a solution
against the Turks (even though Islam played an important role in the war of liberation led by
the Arabs against Turkey), it worked perfectly well against the Christian powers of Europe
who, more often than not, saw themselves as defenders of the Christian faith –
“CHRISTENDOM”. In Egypt (1900’s-1920’s) and in the Sudan (the Madhists in the late
1890’s-early 1900’s) principally, POLITICAL ISLAM entered the picture and defied
Britain’s power. Messianic sects such as the Madhist’s in the Sudan claimed to be led by a
prophet who would reopen a new Golden Age for Muslims worldwide. The uprisings that
followed were generally ruthlessly crushed.
Later in the 20th century (1950’s essentially), Arab nationalism in its PAN-ARAB
(PAN-ARABISM) form was forced to do away with religion, seen as incapable of uniting the
different professed currents of Islam (Shia, Sunni) and the Christian sects (Maronites in the
Lebanon or Copts in Egypt who were Christian Arabs and who also had to be united behind
the banner of “Arabism”). Pan-Arabism claimed to speak for all the different Arab countries,
ignoring the already rampant balkanization of the region. The influences of pan-Arabism were
rather to be found in the nation-states of the European enlightenment, since it was a
movement that had been first developed in the late 1890’s-early 1900’s by Maronites
(Christian Arabs). Pan-Arabism was at heart a secular movement that gave birth to such
political parties as the BAATH Party (Iraq) of Saddam Hussein.
- Irredentism:
13
IRREDENTISM (French: irrédentisme/adj: irrédentaire) is the reclaiming of a
territory that supposedly belonged to one’s ancestors. The classic case in point for the British
history of decolonization is of course Palestine, where the Jewish minorities present there –
sometimes for centuries – claimed to have a special right to the land in virtue of a previous
occupation in Biblical times (see Lorot et Thual, 68-73).
-Zionism was an irrendentist form of nationalism. Officially born in 1897 (29
August, first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland), Zionism was developed in a book
entitled The Jewish State by Theodor Herzl (pub. 1896). It was at first a reaction to the
Dreyfus case of 1894, but more generally an attempt to soothe the plight of those Eastern
Jewish communities of Russia, Poland and Romania (notably) suffering from segregation,
pogroms and massacres. Although it was not meant at first to be irrendentist in its ideology –
Herzl at first considered buying land in Argentina –, Britain’s needs to consolidate their
Egyptian frontiers on the route to India soon offered the Zionists a possibility to settle closer
and closer to Palestine (they had been offered lands in el-Arish, on the Egyptian-Palestine
border in 1906-1908). It was not a colonial movement at first, and it was greatly influenced by
revolutionary ideas – socialism – from Russia. Its first aims were to save as many Eastern
Jews as possible (before Hitler, and after of course), but the ambiguous position of Britain
between WWI and WWII turned the movement into a stronger form of exclusivist
nationalism. Remember that after 1917, the Jews were promised a “National Home” in
Palestine under the supervision of Britain. Unrest with the Arab populations and the discovery
of oil led England to try and appease their Arab neighbours in Palestine: in 1938, Britain
forbade Jewish immigration to Palestine, prompting even stronger anti-British feelings in the
colonial Jewish-Zionist fringe of the population.
14
LECTURE III. ASIA AND INDIA
A. FREEDOM, THE GREAT PRETENCE, JAPAN THE GREAT PRETENDER
The love-hate story between Britain and Japan started fairly late in the history of both
countries, and, to be more specific, it started precisely at the period marking the early decline
of the British Empire. The new “age of imperialism” launched with THE SCRAMBLE
FOR AFRICA (1880’s) was followed in Britain by a period of depression (around 1895 to
1902) marked by the arrival of new colonial rivals (Germany essentially). To insulate herself
from continental skirmishes in Europe and from colonial frictions abroad, Britain then
resorted to a policy of isolationism that came to be known as the period of “SPLENDID
ISOLATION”.
Now precisely, Britain’s isolation came to an end in 1902 when the Anglo-Japanese alliance
was signed. Japan was then seen as a kind of Great Britain in Asia: an island guarding the
landmass of the continent that relied on its Navy for its defence. Japan also had a highly
modern and developed production system, as well as a strongly westernised way of doing
business and of understanding politics. Japan was then seen as a Western country, pure and
simple. The Anglo-Japanese alliance was soon to be put to the test in the Pacific.
In 1904, Russia declared war on Japan over the control of naval stations in Port Arthur and
the south-eastern coast of China. Between 1904-1905, naval campaigns involved both powers,
with the result that Russia at the end of the war was forced to capitulate. In Europe, the war
was received not with anxiety, but with rather mixed feelings. In truth, it was the first time
that an Asiatic power defeated a European giant in modern times. Racist considerations
insisted on the fact that a coloured people had defeated a white Christian – albeit
“authoritarian” – power, which for some led to fears of a new world order looming about in
15
Asia. Forty years or so later, the same PRESTIGE/GRANDEUR dimension prevailed and
partly explained the rapid decolonization of Asia after WWII.
The British Empire in Asia before WWII.
Source : www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/seasia.htm (2011)
All this was only reinforced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s pledge to create a new
world order once the Nazis and their allies had been wiped out. The ATLANTIC
CHARTER of August 1941 signed by Roosevelt and Churchill was somehow an
equivalent to Wilson’s 14 points during the First World War, as EIGHT WAR AIMS were
announced. The first of these stated THAT NO COUNTRY WOULD SEEK
TERRITORIAL GAIN FROM THE WAR (First Point) while its third point pledged both
parties to “RESPECT THE RIGHT OF ALL PEOPLES TO CHOOSE THE FORM OF
GOVERNMENT UNDER WHICH THEY WILL LIVE; AND THEY WISH TO SEE
SOVEREIGN RIGHTS AND SELF-GOVERNMENT RESTORED TO THOSE WHO
HAVE BEEN FORCIBLY DEPRIVED OF THEM” (Atlantic Charter, 3rd point, 1941,
quoted in Jeremy Paxman, Empire: What Ruling the World did to the British, Viking/Penguin,
BBC, 2011). Once more, the Americans tried to use a war to do away with old-style
imperialism. A few months after the Charter was signed, dramatic events completely altered
the course of the war, but did not change Roosevelt’s determination to create a new world
order, though it has to be said that the years 1941-1942 slightly changed Churchill’s position
so far as the professed aims of the Atlantic Charter were concerned.
In a surprise attack of the combined land and naval Japanese forces, Singapore fell in
February 1942. The attack itself was a shock, much as Pearl Harbor had been in December
1941. The model of the attack was however one the British were familiar with, since it had
been used with great success during the First World War by no other than Thomas Edward
Lawrence in Aqaba (in today’s Jordan). Singapore, like Aqaba, was deemed impregnable
from the sea, all the defences of these territories being turned to the sea. To reach Aqaba from
the land took one across a deadly desert that no army – or so the Turks thought – could cross,
whereas to take Singapore, one would first need to capture Malaya. The capture of much of
Europe’s colonies in the Far East by Japan bestowed a mortal blow on the prestige of such
countries as France, Britain or the Netherlands.
16
Between 1940 and 1945, the Japanese swept over most South east Asia, conquering first
Indochina (French), Hong Kong (GB), Malaysia (GB), Singapore (GB), the Dutch East
Indies (NL), Burma (GB) and the Philippines (USA). Japanese occupations were always
accompanied by a strong anti-colonial propaganda in which Japan posed as the champion of
the oppressed Asiatic peoples. A violent form of “pan-Asia” propaganda developed alongside
a form of “Nippon-centrism”, much as the European had in the past relied on a form of “Eurocentrism”.
What the Japanese put forward in these conquered territories was a violent anti-European
propaganda that claimed that the Westernization of the world, with its materialist corollary,
had corrupted the minds of the Asiatic peoples. Japan claimed a return to the traditions of the
East in a loose political and moral order that replaced the corrupt practices of the West. They
claimed that they were not new masters of the Asian races, and above all, that they were not
trying to emulate Western nations and their market-oriented empires. THEIRS WAS A
MILITARY POWER, NOT A CIVIL ONE (Marc Ferro, Histoire des colonisations, 382).
In other words, Japan did not intend to transform societies, but to free them from Europe.
This liberation started pretty badly in 1941 in the Philippines with the infamous “DEATH
MARCH”, where American soldiers died of exhaustion in a forced march across the country.
In other territories, the KEMPETAI, the Japanese equivalent to the Nazi GESTAPO
imposed a reign of terror. Nonetheless, Japanese propaganda continued unhindered until
1945, and was even reinvested from 1942 on (till 1945) in one important concept, that of the
so-called CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE: a Ministry for Great Eastern Asia was founded
(1942) with the aim of coordinating the economies of the zone. The economies of the region
were to serve the war aims of Japan and a certain coordination was ordered before an actual
military government was put into place.
All this of course went against the promises of independence that the Japanese had put
forward in 1940 when they had pledged to replace the European conquerors. Now before the
final defeat of Japan, and actually as soon as 1943 in some cases, the Japanese declared
unilateral independence to their former conquered territories (with the exceptions of
Taiwan and Korea), so that when the British and the French came back after the war to
claim what they considered theirs, local populations could only react negatively. Only in the
Philippines, where Japanese rule had been particularly harsh were the Americans welcomed
as liberators. Elsewhere, the Japanese occupation had made it possible to think of
independence, and nationalism took root quickly in countries such as Indochina or Malaysia.
Only Hong Kong remained British long after the war (retrocession to China: 1997); Burma
became independent as soon as 1948, while Malaysia, because of its multi-ethnic composition
and because of the Chinese Communist Party propaganda, became a kind of soft Vietnam. In
1947, the British tried to soothe the political situation by decentralising their administration.
Only in 1957 did independence finally come.
B. GREAT GAME, GREAT SHAME, GREAT SHAM
1. Great Game: Russia and India
In 1901, better than anyone before him, Rudyard Kipling, the official poet of the British
Empire, published a literary account of what 19th century diplomats called “THE GREAT
GAME” (in Kim). Following the Crimean War of 1853-1856, a whole series of skirmishes
17
involved Britain and Russia along the northern frontiers of India, especially in Afghanistan.
As we have seen in lecture 2, the Ottoman/Turkish empire extended over the greatest part of
present-day Middle East, but in the 1850’s, it also comprised parts of Europe (Balkans). In
other words, for some European powers who tended to see international affairs in terms of
ethnical/religious conflicts, there existed Christians populations in Europe dwelling under a
Muslim yoke: briefly speaking, the aim of Russia back then was to turn Turkish rule into
Russian rule.
The Crimean War was probably one of the first modern world wars fought partly for
ideological and territorial reasons: Russia declared war on Turkey in the hope that it would
then be allowed to extend its rule directly to the heart of Europe. The fragile Ottoman Empire
needed to be defended, for too numerous were the territorial gains at stake: England and
France declared war on Russia. It was during this war that such episodes as the CHARGE
OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE or FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE’s devotion became
legendary and gave imperialists in England reasons to rejoice. After the war, in 1856, Russia
was for a time ousted from Europe. Logically, the Tsarist power sought new outlets for its
might after that.
And thus started the Great Game, which occupied Britain during most of the second half of
the 19th century. Afghanistan was the chief country in which Russian and British ambitions
clashed, the aims of both powers being to extend their mutual influences over India. Russia
sought to infiltrate through the North (Persia/Afghanistan) while Britain had kept to a
maritime tradition in the South of the Subcontinent. Although Afghanistan remained
throughout the period an independent country, its leaders were sometimes installed and
changed according to the whims of the two “great players”. And thus it was that Afghanistan
turned into a BUFFER STATE (Fr: ETAT TAMPON), a concept the definition of which
was given by Arthur James Balfour in 1903, while he was Prime Minister
(Conservative): « AFGHANISTAN IS NOT MERELY, PERHAPS NOT CHIEFLY,
VALUABLE TO US AS A ‘BUFFER STATE’ – A STATE PREPARED TO TAKE
THE FIRST BRUNT OF AGGRESSION. »
All this may probably explain the difficulties that Afghanistan had to live through in the 20th
century, with the Soviet invasion of the 1980’s down to the US-Britain led invasion of the
post 9/11 period.
Officially, the Great Game’s final whistle was blown less than a decade before WWI, in
1907 when following the Anglo-Japanese Alliance (1902), the Anglo-French “Entente
Cordiale” (1904), a further alliance was signed with Russia. These three international
treaties allowed Britain to definitely and positively escape her former state of “splendid
isolation”: the Great Game with Russia was to be turned into series of skirmishes – give or
take a world war or two – with Germany in Africa and in the Middle East. Along the northern
Indian frontier proper, when Bolshevik Russia (after 1917) turned its back to Europeanstyled imperialism, Britain felt secure at long last. One further World War was to put this
hard-gained confidence to the test.
18
2. Great Shame: India between Mutiny, Revolution and “Retribution”
In this section, we will only deal – mostly for want of time – with two episodes of the British
colonization of India, namely the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the Amritsar uprising of
1919.
- THE INDIAN MUTINY (1857): This famous painting was drawn in 1858, right after the
so-called “Mutiny” of the previous year. It represents BRITANNIA, the personification, the
embodiment, the incarnation of the British Empire, slaying the Indian tiger. Unlike the
American Uncle Sam, Britannia is a woman – albeit a fierce-looking one here –, meant to
represent in normal times values of motherhood – colonial peoples were seen as “children” –
and magnanimity. Her laurel wreath is of course a reminder of the Roman Empire, while the
dead woman and child lying at her feet are vivid symbols of the barbarism of the Indian tiger.
In 1857, not less than in 1919, the rape of white women and the killing of white children were
the symbols of the utmost depravity of the Oriental peoples.
19
Edward Armitage, Retribution (1858), Leeds Arts Gallery
The official cause of the rebellion was the introduction of the Enfield rifle for the Indian
army. It has to be remembered that the Indian army was mostly composed of Indian soldiers
(sepoys), Muslims as well as Hindus. Now the bullets for the Enfield rifle were wrapped in
paper greased with pork and cow fat: soldiers had to bite off the end of the cartridge before
loading the rifle, which was of course offensive for both communities. A rebellion ensued,
mostly localized in the north (Bengal) and along the Afghan frontier. Although some
historians in India tended to present the 1857 events as a nationalist struggle of
liberation, people like Gandhi (1869-1948) in the early 20th century remained ignorant of the
mutiny, as the events themselves were then hardly discussed. As soon as 1858, the year right
after the mutiny, the British government took into their hands the ruling of India, and the East
India Company that had started in 1600 was dismantled.
20
The 1853 Enfield Gun Cartridge, personal photography, Leeds Royal Armouries
- AMRITSAR (1919): The Amritsar massacre was nearly entirely due to one man, General
Reginald Dyer. But before we explain what happened in this town near the frontier with
present-day Pakistan, a short review of the history of Indian nationalism during WWI is
necessary. Gandhi had become a well-known political activist for the Indian community in
South Africa before the war. Converted to the doctrines of AHIMSA (non-violence) and
SATYAGRAHA (passive resistance), it was not clear whether Gandhi would support the
war or not, and it was not clear whether the Indian Congress would support the British Empire
war effort.
War was declared on 4th Aug, and Gandhi arrived in England on 6th Aug 1914. Pressed to take
a decision concerning the participation of India alongside Britain, Gandhi wrote:
“I had hoped to improve my status and that of my people through the British Empire.
Whilst in England I was enjoying the protection of the British Fleet, and taking shelter
as I did under its armed might, I was directly participating in its potential violence.
Therefore, if I desired to retain my connection with the Empire and to live under its
banner, one of three courses was open to me: I could declare open resistance to the war
and, in accordance with the law of Satyagraha, boycott the Empire until it changed its
military policy; or I could seek imprisonment by civil disobedience of such of its laws as
were fit to be disobeyed; or I could participate in the war on the side of the Empire and
thereby acquire the capacity and firmness for resisting the violence of war.”
(M.K. Gandhi, The Story of my Experiments with Truth, 1927-9, 319)
21
It wouldn’t be funny if Gandhi, like most Indians during WWI, had not chosen the third
option. He even enrolled in the Ambulance Corps during the war. But yet, Gandhi is only one
among many others of Indians who came to support the Empire when the war broke out.
While Britain had made loose promises tending towards the adoption of self-government
status in the long run, nationalists in India were somewhat disappointed when their demands
were watered down. The Government of India Act of 1919 was passed and only extended
franchise for provincial, not central, elections (Levine, 162; 169-70). Thus the end of the war
was marked by nationalist agitation.
In Amritsar on 13 Apr 1919, General Dyer was sent to maintain order after a riot had
claimed 5 British lives a week before. Faced with what he had miscalculated as a hostile mob
– it was the Sikh New Year’s day –, Dyer ordered his men to open fire on the crowd, killing
379 and wounding 1200 (Paxman, 237). After that of course, things in India slowed down and
the next steps down the road to independence were not to be taken before WWII. Let Gandhi
conclude on this chapter of Amritsar: “We do not want to punish Dyer. We have no desire
for revenge. We want to change the system that produced Dyer” (Gandhi, quoted in
Paxman, 238).
3. Great Sham: WWII and after
The Indian Congress had been founded in 1885 in order to appease tensions that had arisen
after a controversial legal decision in 1884 (a bill had been introduced the year before, viz.
1883, and provided for the equal treatment of British and Indian subjects before courts of law
in India, which of course the Raj’s British population refused). The Congress at the beginning
was not a nationalist hub, but rather a club of Western-educated Indians that the Raj tried to
use to show its benevolent inclinations towards India. Before WWI, it had lacked popular
support but had the advantage of representing a modernizing force for India, as well as a
nationalist embryo that promised to unite Indians behind common ideas and values.
The great sham here is not the partition of August 1947 per se, but what preceded it. If
the Indian Congress had been disappointed by the constitutional outcome of WWI, when in
1939 the British once more asked for a direct participation of India to the war (levy troops and
taxes), it refused this time to cooperate. The Congress was somehow divided on the issue,
Gandhi launching a campaign of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE while Nehru thought that the
struggle against fascism and the Nazis should be paramount. At approximately the same
time, in March 1940, the Muslim Indians led by ALI JINNAH also launched a campaign
(PAKISTAN RESOLUTION) for the creation of two different states after the war:
Pakistan (Muslim Indians) and India (Hindi Indians).
Congress in effect had passed the “TRIPURI RESOLUTION” in March 1938, refusing
cooperation with the British. When the war was declared, the Viceroy, John Linlithgow, did
not consult the Congress, and so, once more to appease tensions, he made in 1940 an
“AUGUST OFFER” he thought Congress could not refuse: India would be free after the war;
a new constitution would be written; the interests of minorities would be guaranteed. Lack of
22
trust and the ghosts of WWI brought the whole process to a standstill: the Congress rejected
the offer while Jinnah’s Muslim League issued the Lahore Resolution (separate states in all
regions comprising a Muslim majority).
In Britain however, Churchill took power in 1940 and refused to allow the Empire to lose
India, during or after the war: in 1942, new plans for the constitutional future of India were
discussed that included the granting of Dominion status (self-government), provided it
would be up to the different provinces to choose to remain under British protection or to
opt for Dominion status. The Congress could only fear a “balkanisation” (Bernard Droz,
77) of India and its division into different political entities. The problem of the religious
minorities and majorities was also a pretty moot point.
The Congress rejected Churchill’s propositions and launched the “QUIT INDIA” campaign
(July 1942): immediate independence and refusal to send troops to defend Britain were
part of the Congress’ demands. The British jailed Gandhi and Nehru, but could not do much
to stop the ensuing riots and unrest. In 1943, a former member of the Indian Congress even
launched a pro-Japanese nationalist movement and levied troops to fight against Britain.
CHANDRA BOSE and his INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY had first thought to convince
Hitler to help India, but then had to turn to Japan. An army was trained and an invasion was
even planned from Burma (1944) without any great success.
After the war of course, tensions remained worrying for Britain, which convinced
CLEMENT ATTLEE (LAB, 1945-51) that a quick solution had to be found, as Labour was
more interested in reconstruction at home than in imperial consolidation abroad. Negotiations
were launched in 1946-1947, Britain planning to grant India an independent federal structure.
Race riots (Aug. 1946) led to the GREAT CALCUTTA KILLING, when a few thousands
of Hindus were killed by Muslim agitators and rioters.
Faced with the same problems in other parts of the world (Middle East), the British thought it
high time to move out of India: total disengagement was first proposed for 30 June 1948.
Once more, the problem of race relations and the risk of balkanization urged both the
Congress and the British government to take swift decisions: as it seemed at the time
impossible to grant unilateral independence because of the risk of civil war between the
Hindu and Muslim communities, it was agreed that India would be partitioned. Three
different entities were to be created along religious/ethnic lines: the Punjab (North West)
and Bengal (North East, later Bangladesh) became Pakistan. There were thus two
Pakistani states created, separated by India.
The India Independence Act was passed on June 10, 1947, with independence becoming
official on 15 Aug. 1947. However, the following autumn saw millions of people forced to
leave their regions (Hindus left Pakistan while Muslims left India), and up to 300 000/500 000
deaths in the process.
23
IV. THE WIND OF CHANGE: AFRICA
Historians generally conceptualize British decolonization as stretched over a 3-decade period:
- 1.) Attlee’s Labour government, which witnessed the decolonization of Asia
(India and Pakistan 1947, Burma Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and Palestine 1948). In the postWWII era, the goals of the Labour government were to avoid military conflicts,
partitions (India, Palestine and Burma) and to save on the costs of imperial defence.
Between Dec 1946 and Feb 1947, while Britain was going through a period of intense
crisis accentuated by an unexpectedly cold winter (fuel shortage, cuts in electricity
supplies), partition plans were drawn for both India and Palestine, for instance. In Burma, the
24
nationalist leader Aung Sang (father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi) was offered independence in
return for acceptance of Commonwealth admission (which eventually did not materialise), in
a context of economic depression following the Japanese exactions during the war.
- 2) The late 1950’s-early 1960’s (Macmillan), which witnessed the decolonization of
most of Africa, following financial crisis, geopolitical difficulties linked to the Cold War and
“imperial overstretch”, and broader questions of prestige (Douglas Hurd, Choose your
Weapons, pp. 344-5). The rapprochement with the continent and its new organizations
(ECSC, EEC and the EFTA launched by the British on Jan 1, 1960) as well as
Commonwealth difficulties (decrease in trade figures, political problems in South Africa and
Rhodesia) accelerated the pace of withdrawal. In 1950, Commonwealth trade represented
around 50% of Britain’s exports, with Europe standing at a paltry 25%, but the “sterlingdollar gap” (earning enough dollars to pay for importations) and decrease in Commonwealth
trading relations, already visible in 1956, paved the way for further waves of disengagement
(Alex May, Britain and Europe since 1945, pp. 9-10; 31-2). In the backdrop of the post-war
years, during which time Britain had artificially increased its Commonwealth trade to meet
the requirements of bridging the sterling-dollar gap, figures starting to decline as soon as
1950, at a time when British food production also started to increase.
Chart by Nicholas Fram, Decolonization, the Commonwealth and British Trade, 1945-2004 ©
Stanford University
- 3) Mid-1960’s to 1970’s: “east of Suez”. Harold Wilson (Lab) and Edward Heath (C)
were the main artisans of withdrawal from naval/military stations in Borneo, Malaya,
Singapore and the Persian Gulf (the final liquidation of Britain’s former “informal empire”).
All this was planned for 1971, in a climate of exacerbated tensions: broadly speaking, neither
the governments concerned “east of Suez” approved of the British climb-down, who lost both
25
protection (in a region marked by cold war conflicts) and trade outlets, nor the USA who
between 1963 and 1975 were engaged in the Vietnam war. But economic strains (maintaining
armies and troops) in times of crisis as well as the loss of trust, confidence and prestige
associated to the Suez crisis (1956) decided the issue.
In a period of political consensus that the Conservatives and the Labour party fully accepted,
the major final steps of decolonization were entrusted to the former. Some in the Conservative
ranks resisted, such as the League of Empire Loyalists or the Suez group (1954), but all in all,
it was generally accepted that the work started by Attlee in India needed to be finished by
Macmillan. The two world wars had made it clear that people had the right to be free, and that
it was no longer acceptable for Europeans to politically dominate other parts of the world.
Besides, nationalism and the growing national consciousness visible throughout Africa
seemed to make it clear that people that were not deemed to be ready for independence during
the heyday of imperialism now were. In 1960, Harold Macmillan delivered his famous “wind
of change” speech in South Africa, before the Parliament, he which he recognized the import
of Africa’s claims to be free:
“The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a
month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different
places it may take different forms, but it is happening everywhere. The wind of
change is blowing through this continent. As a fellow member of this
Commonwealth, it is our earnest desire to give South Africa our support and
encouragement, but I hope you won’t mind my saying frankly that there are
some aspects of your policies that make it impossible for us to do this without
being false to our own deep convictions about the political destinies of free
men”.
Thus Macmillan recognized that Britain had only become “first among equals” in the
Commonwealth, and no longer a dominating power, while insisting on the force of the
national claims of Africa and a desire to see humanitarian values spread through the
Continent. All this of course was not simply the fruit of a sudden humanitarian change of
heart.
A. The International context.
The very term “decolonization” only came to be widely used in the 1950’s, though because of
its negative undertones (decolonized countries had once been colonized and dominated by
other countries) it was sometimes replaced by such expressions as “liberation struggle” or
“resumption of independence” that implied the notion of courageous fighting. If before the
20th century, imperialism had already been attacked on economic grounds (the “burden of
empire”), colonies were maintained, some argue, for reasons of prestige and “great power
status” (Johnson, British Imperialism, 186).
After World War II, given the negative impact imperialism (Nazi/Soviet) had had upon
Europe, given the role of the USA, given the burden of empire, given the disastrous Suez
adventure of 1956, given a real desire to focus on the welfare state (a “New Jerusalem” in
Britain rather than a far-flung one under Attlee) and given the evidence Britain had already
26
had that the Commonwealth could function without her, it seemed easier to grant
independence to the remnants of the empire.
1. The Statute of Westminster (1931): Commonwealth countries do it better
After World War I, it was strategy, rather than the economy, that prompted the urge to grant
self-government to the white colonies. In South Africa, the Boer War of 1899-1902 had
shown the strength nationalism (white nationalism, the Boers being descendants of Dutch
colonists), while in India, Western-educated elites had understood the impact European
nationalism (in the sense of its ultimate form, the Nation-State) could have on their demands
for more autonomy, for Home Rule or even for sheer independence.
Two options were basically under study: closer union or federalism. On the one hand,
centrifugal forces (nationalism) pushed for more freedom, while on the other hand in Britain,
some argued for a more centralised empire. What was deemed essential was to keep “freedom
in unity”. As for the case of Europe after the Second World War, what the British absolutely
tried to avoid was the federal option. A closer union meant somewhat a kind of identification
of the interests of the mother country and its colonies (which was a serious problem, notably
in Ireland), while federalism meant that the empire of white colonies would only become one
and the same nation. Federalism was by the way the solution that Seeley and some
imperialists had advocated since the 1880’s. Hence, a common constitution was out of the
question, since “Its widely scattered parts have very different characteristics, very different
histories, and are at very different stages of evolution” (Transcript of the Imperial
Conference, 1926, Inter-imperial relations committee, “Balfour Report” of 1926).
The choice thus lay between stronger unity or more freedom (Antoine Mioche, Les Grandes
dates, 191). It has to be noted that this debate only centred around the white empire, the
“brown” and “black” empires not being considered developed enough to avoid a recourse to
military force.
Facing centrifugal forces of resistance to the continuation of imperial rule in the white
colonies, essentially in Canada and in South Africa, were the leader of the country, J.M.B.
Herzog, had a long history of anti-British feelings and pro-Boer nationalist inclinations,
threatened to secede from the Empire. The number of Anzac (Australian and New Zealand
Army Corps) servicemen killed during WWI also raised questions as to the cooperation
between the different parts of the Empire in times of war. In 1926, the Balfour Report defined
what the dominion status was for the first time. Dominions are: “autonomous Communities
within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect
of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and
freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations” (Transcript of the
Imperial Conference, 1926, Inter-imperial relations committee, “Balfour Report” of 1926).
This was enshrined in the Statute of Westminster of 1931: Legislative freedom was
recognized for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State.
Finally, South Africa did indeed secede, but much later, in 1961, because of her racial
policies, Fiji in 1987 was rejected because of an anti-democratic coup organized by the
27
military, and common values were clearly defined in 1991: democracy, the rule of law, social
justice (Johnson, British Imperialism, pp. 200-201).
2. “It’s the economy, stupid!”, or “Events, dear boy, events”!
These two quotations, the former by soon-to-be-President of the USA Bill Clinton in 1992,
the latter by incumbent-PM Macmillan both imply that realpolitik and pragmatism should
guide leaders in a post-WWII context. Bill Clinton, who was running the 1992 elections vs
George Bush (the elder), had made it clear that his was no ideological platform, and that the
economy would dictate future choices. Macmillan, on the other hand, when pressed to explain
what stood in the way of political realisations, had answered “events…..”, thus implying once
more that a successful PM/politician had to be ready to change course and adapt.
Before Britain decided to set free the remaining parts of her empire in Africa after WWII, it
has to be understood that economic strains during the Slump (1930’s) and in the mid-1960’s
(when Britain in its turn became “the sick man of Europe”) had imposed the idea that
“imperial overstretch” needed to be tackled.
In the age of empires, before WWI, there were simple, basic ways of answering a growing
world economic/military competition. When Britain first had to confront stronger economic
powers (the USA, Japan, and Germany), she at first tried to keep up with the competition,
building always more ships, conquering always more territories, and trying to sell always
more goods, before realising the only way to do away with such a competition was to strike at
your main competitor, and that was WWI.
Now after WWI, the British government had imposed cuttings on defence budgets, innocently
believing that trade would allow for swift rearmaments in case of need. Still, after 1929,
Britain was forced to abandon free trade, one of the major tenets of the new age of
imperialism of the late 19th century (Import Duties Act, 1932). But right at the moment links
with the dominions had been strengthened through the statute of Westminster, it was
unthinkable to abandon the Commonwealth countries in such a time of crisis. So, a Sterling
Area was created, as well as the idea of Imperial Preference, an old concept, that of the MostFavoured Nation, according to which tariffs were to be reciprocated1. Thus, Britain and the
Commonwealth were to use the Pound and benefitted from a restricted free-trade zone, since
these states were highly dependent on British imports. This partly led some British historians
(William Roger Louis and Ronald Robinson) to consider the Commonwealth and the sterling
1
As a general rule the provisions of Commercial Treaties are founded on one or other of the following
principles, or on a combination of them – (1) “Reciprocity”; (2) “Most-favoured Nation Treatment” (or briefly
“M.F.N.”); (3) “National Treatment.”Reciprocity in the wider sense of the term extends to every case in which A
purports to treat B as well as B treats A, and the term is therefore wide enough to embrace the mutual accordance
of “M.F.N.” and also that of National Treatment. The idea underlying “M.F.N.” is that A will treat B as well as
A treats any other foreign country; while “National Treatment” may be described as an extension of “M.F.N.”
under which A engages to give B the treatment given to native subjects. (CAB 37/68/14 (The “Most Favoured
Nation” Principle, Anon. [Board of Trade], n.d. [janvier 1904]).
28
area were only old means to maintain an informal empire after WWII, in the same spirit the
Crown had increased its imperial possessions after WWI.
Problem: Britain after WWII had become the world’s number one debtor (£3bn), mostly to
countries in the sterling area; Britain had to cope with a balance of payments deficit of around
£1,2bn(C. C. S. Newton, “The Sterling Crisis of 1947 and the British Response to the
Marshall Plan,” The Economic History Review, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Aug., 1984)); the Labour
government was pledged to build the welfare state; the sterling area was anyway too small to
absorb British imports and too inconsistent to compete with the dollar. At this point, the
history of Britain’s involvement with Europe and of her disengagement from the empire
merged: the USA with the European Recovery Plan (Marshall Plan) of 1947 voiced its
resentment at the protectionist area created by Britain and her dependant empire. Truman
insisted that in order to get money (US loan of $3.5bn in 1947), Britain had to accept the
convertibility of the Pound (set for July 15, 1947). This meant, grossly speaking, that the
financial centre of the empire would then be located in Washington, no longer in London. The
1949 devaluation of the British currency (less 40%) was the second nail in the coffin of
Britain’s central financial position for the Commonwealth. In the wake of the sterling crisis of
1947, the Labour government chose to withdraw from Palestine, as Attlee had set to avoid
being caught in civil wars (costly in terms of image and dollars). India must also be
understood partly in this light, as the then Prime Minister explained there was a “close
parallel” between India and Palestine (the question of partition. See W. Roger Louis, The
Oxford History of the British Empire, p. 336).
As W. Roger Louis points out in The Oxford History of the British Empire, “Throughout the
era [1945-1960], the economics, the politics, and the military aspects of the Imperial crisis
were all inseparable” (p.331), though he insists that right after WWII, economics dominated
the picture.
B. Africa
1. African peripheries: Iran, the Sudan and Egypt.
a. Persian oil
Before the Suez crisis of 1956 that effectively marked the end of Britain’s influence as a
global power, Attlee in Iran lost international assets calculated to be around £120m, or the
sum needed to “retool and modernize [Britain’s] coal industry” (W. Roger Louis, British
Empire in the Middle East, p55). It was a humiliation that sent shockwaves to the USA, since
Iran’s premier had nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in a region highly
prone to Russian (Soviet) intervention. At the same time the USA pushed Britain in the
direction of European integration and the end of Empire, it also checked the Conservatives’
(led by WS Churchill) desire to retaliate. And so Attlee’s term ended with, successively, the
convertibility crisis (1947), the Palestine debacle (1948), the devaluation crisis (1949), soon
29
followed by the loss of Abadan’s AIOC (1951), right at the time Europeans were creating
their own tariff-protected trade zone with the ECSC.
b. Sudanese freedom
In Egypt, the year after, a revolution broke out that furthered the desire of the Sudanese to
gain independence. The British had occupied the Sudan out of the old “divide and rule” policy
according to which, in the case in point, the Sudanese population accepted the Crown out of
fear: fear of the Egyptian neighbour. Now that the Egyptian revolution (1952) had brought to
power men with Sudanese background (Neguib), the question of self-determination was
brought forward, and rapidly accepted by Britain. Self-determination was to be implied by
1955, with a date for independence set for Jan 1, 1956. It has been argued that, obviously,
rational calculations had prevailed: it was out of the question for the British to cross the
Egyptians, since most of Britain’s trade assets were linked to the occupation of the Canal zone
that was guaranteed by international settlements (the last one having been ratified in 1954:
British troops were to evacuate the canal within 20 months, but the administration remained in
the hands of Britain. See: Caroline Piquet, Histoire du canal de Suez, 248-9).
c. Egyptian water
In the same vein, by 1954, Ghamal Abd-el Nasser had ousted Neguib and launched a panArab/nationalist platform. Nasser needed money to launch a modernization programme,
notably the building of the Aswan Dam (Barrage d’Assouan). He approached the USA, and
then the Soviet Union, which infuriated President Eisenhower of WWII fame. The USA
stepped back, and, broadly speaking, Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal to finance
the development of Egypt in 1956. Anthony Eden, Churchill’s heir apparent, had replaced his
master in 1955. He was himself a man of the old Conservative guard, and felt insulted by
Nasser’s claims. The question of prestige and of Britain’s international image as a world
power clearly prompted Eden to take steps to check Nasser’s claims. Nasser himself was often
compared to a WWII dictator – to Mussolini by Eden in a letter to the American President, or
even to Hitler by Hugh Gaitskell, the Labour leader. Clearly, letting a people that had been in
the past considered “inferior” by Europeans take the Canal was an insult Eden would not take.
In the wake of Nasser’s announcement, Eden consulted the French and the Israeli secret
services – not the USA, nor the Commons, though a resolution to the UN to intervene
militarily had been vetoed by the USSR – and opted for direct action. The plan was to let
Israeli forces push through the Sinai Peninsula, up to the Canal, and then to intervene together
with France under the pretext of stopping hostilities and promoting peace in the whole region.
Problem(s): the American President in 1956 was right in the middle of a presidential
campaign, and a third world war in the Middle East, the land flowing with milk, honey, and
oil, was probably something he could do without! Plus, Soviet threats and support to Nasser
only prompted the USA to try and appease things. Thus, Eden probably got the thrashing of
his life when in late October 1956 Eisenhower made it clear the USA would not support such
an aggression of the West, at a time precisely when the Soviet Union was showing signs of
agitation in Europe (Hungary). The consequences for Eden were disastrous – he retired in
1957 –, while for Britain :
- The special relationship with the USA was undermined
30
- Britain failed to receive international backing
- The UN condemned Britain’s venture
- Commonwealth countries as a whole refused also to back GB
- A run on the Pound (as international investors withdrew their
reserves of Pounds, causing Britian’s currency to drop) that threatened Britain with
bankruptcy, with no prospect of receiving help from the “American cousin”, as Churchill
could have said.
All in all, the crisis signalled the end of Britain as a world influence, despite what Harold
Wilson (PM 1964-1970; 1974-1976, Lab) was to say in 1965, in the wake of Britain’s second
demand to enter Europe (1967): “We are a world-power, and a world influence, or we are
nothing”. Clearly, new diplomatic means to secure world influence needed to be pursued,
especially for the next PM after Eden, one Harold “Supermac” Macmillan, Conservative
super-hero and former Number One supporter of Eden’s Egyptian adventures…..
2. The Wind of change
In his “Wind of change” speech of 1960, Harold Macmillan had drawn parallels between
Africa and the Dominions of the Commonwealth. In fact, the role model for African
nationalists was rather to be found in India’s National Congress: the African National
Congress (ANC, South Africa), founded 1925 in South Africa, or the National Congress of
West Africa (Gold Coast, today’s Ghana, 1920). Like in India, Congress people were
Western-educated nationalists drawn from the middle-classes. They were not the descendants
of tribal chiefs that the British had relied upon in the old days of “indirect rule” imperialism
(see lectures 1, 2 and 3), and so independence in these people’s hands promised not to lead to
tribal divisions, ethnic cleansings or civil wars. But promises, just like laws, are made to be
broken.
a. The Gold Coast (Ghana)
It had been a successful colony during WWII thanks to its cocoa plantations, so much so it
became the world’s biggest producer of this fantastic and delicate product by 1945. There,
Britain had extended political rights to black Africans in order to keep the colony going. By
1947, Danquah was leading a moderate Gold Coast congress (United Gold Coast Convention)
than soon turned into a hub of nationalist/communist-oriented ideologies, under the influence
of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah himself soon left the Convention to form his own party,
together with Western-educated young Africans (the Youth Section branch). Like in India,
they organised strikes and boycotts of British products. Nkrumah was elected in 1951, but
was rather reluctant to do away with the British since few were the Ghanaian people with
political/governmental experience and since the riches of the country were under strain (cocoa
disease). Still, he was re-elected in 1956, and this time Whitehall chose to withdraw and let
the Ghanaians conduct their own affairs. March 1957 was the date picked by Britain.
Nkrumah was plagued from the start by the ethnic divisions the European-drawn frontiers
were provoking: he soon organized Ghana as a dictatorship and approached the Soviet bloc.
b. Nigeria
31
At the time Frederick Lugard was governor of Nigeria (see lecture 1), he had successfully
applied indirect rule. The problem of Nigeria was ethnic divisions: after WWII, three main
regions emerged, organized around three different political parties, all pledged to
independence. Britain proposed a federal structure to be applied after independence, which
finally came in 1960. But the discovery of natural resources (gas, oil) led to further
secessionist tendencies from the three main regions of Nigeria. In the north and the east,
armed conflicts led to election-rigging and, more dramatically, to the creation of an
independent Biafra state in the east in 1967. Military dictatorship and ethnic cleansings were
commonplace in the 1970’s-1980’s in Biafra.
c. Kenya
In Kenya, as in South and North Rhodesia, the traditional problem of ethnic relations were
complicated by the white settlements. The white English minority in Kenya thought Britain
would uphold their claims for privileged political representation (most white settlers were big
land owners). In 1923, the Devonshire White paper, supposed to regulate relations of British
populations settled in “black” lands, made it clear that: “Primarily Kenya is an African
territory, and His Majesty's Government think it necessary to record their considered opinion
that the interests of the African population must be paramount, and that if and when those
interests and the interests of the migrant races conflict the former should prevail” (Hansard
Lord, House of Lords debates, Lord Faringdon on 01 February 1944, vol 130, cc578-612).
Tensions thus accelerated, each “coloured” minority – whites, blacks, and brown-Indians who
had emigrated to the colony as middle class merchants – claiming a right to political
representation. Tensions were serious enough for an African leader to then declare: “if the
whites will only sleep for two days, there would be no Indian Question” (quoted in Robert
Johnson, op. cit., p. 195). After WWII, as tensions did not cool down, the MAU MAU
REBELLION burst (1952-1956): it was a guerrilla warfare launched by people drawn from
the black Kikuyu minority, who feared white appropriation of the lands and the political
apparatus of Kenya once Britain had withdrawn. All in all, nearly 2,500 civilians got killed
during the rebellion, with shock tactics on both the British and on the Mau Mau side (the
army had been called in, but not to maintain Britain as a colonial power, only to shut down
the Mau Mau claims). The tactics of the British army led to a general condemnation, which in
the end did away with the white settlers’ claims to stick to their position. In 1963, Jomo
Kenyatta was elected (independence: 1963) on a platform of Kikuyu-dominated centralised
socialism (he was opposed to a federalist who wanted to avoid ethnic tensions by proposing a
federal structure in which the different regions of Kenya would have equal opportunities of
development).
d. Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
Southern Rhodesia was part of the “white south” that journalist Martin Meredith studied in
The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (2006), together with South
Africa, Northern Rhodesia and Mozambique (Portugal). It was by the way this “white south”
that Macmillan addressed in his Wind of change speech. Against the backdrop of Macmillan’s
speech before the South African Parliament, South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961,
facing economic sanctions for the politics of apartheid (Dutch for separateness) that it had
32
started to implement in 1948. The history of the “white south” is one of horrendous racial
policies and segregation against black destitute majorities (see TD 6).
In Southern Rhodesia, the white settler minority (see white colonies, lectures 1&2) refused to
relinquish power and lands (as Kenyan whites had), refusing to accept the majority rule that
would of course have led to Black people seizing power lawfully. So, led primarily by racist
considerations, the then white PM and leader of the Rhodesian Front, Ian Smith, declared
UNILATERAL DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE, or UDI in 1965. UDI simply
meant the whites refused to compromise and accept the very tenets of democracy and Western
civilization they to be upholding against backward Black Africans. Great Britain was
embarrassed because, as seen before, people such as Harold Wilson (then PM) were reluctant
to launch military campaigns (refusal to send troops to Vietnam) abroad (!): the fact that a
military intervention would have been launched against former white British settlers would
also have been reminiscent of the age of imperialism (the Boer War in South Africa, 18991902 against the Dutch/Boer settlers). Instead, loose economic sanctions were decided, as
well as an embargo on Rhodesian agricultural products (tobacco).
After 15 years of white rule, facing guerrilla fighters and economic sanctions, Smith accepted
negotiations with Margaret Thatcher’s government (she had opposed sanctions) in 1980:
majority rule was finally accepted, and ROBERT MUGABE, a former guerrilla fighter, won
the elections in 1980. The country then became ZIMBABWE, but Mugabe only proved to be
ruthless dictator. With the approval of neighbouring countries, he redistributed white lands
(but mainly to his own cronies), launched campaigns of violence, and pillaged the country’s
riches: UN estimates point that nearly 2/3 of the population now live at basic subsistence
level.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTE: les titres en gras précédés d’une * sont des ouvrages simples, lisibles et peu volumineux vers lesquels
vous pouvez vous tourner plus facilement. La lecture de chapitres ou de sélections d’autres ouvrages mentionnés
ci-dessous est évidemment conseillée
d’ANCONA, Matthew, ed. Being British. Introduction by Gordon Brown. Edinburgh, London :
Mainstream, 2009
ATTENBOROUGH, Richard. Gandhi. 1982 (film)
BROWN, Judith M. and William Roger LOUIS, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire. Vol.
5: The Twentieth Century. Oxford: OUP, 2001
CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer. My African Journey. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908
DROZ, Bernard. Histoire de la décolonisation au XXème siècle. Paris : Seuil, 2006
ENCEL, Frédéric. Horizons géopolitiques. Paris : Seuil, 2009
FERRO, Marc. Histoire des décolonisations, des conquêtes aux indépendances, XIIIème-XXème siècle.
Paris : Seuil, 1994
GIRARDET, Raoul. L’Idée coloniale en France de 1871 à 1962. Paris : Hachette, 1972
HOBSBAWM, Eric. The Age of Empire, 1875-1914. Latest ed. London: Abacus, 2010.
33
*JOHNSON, Robert. British Imperialism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
KENNEDY, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage, 1989
LAURENS, Henry. L’Empire et ses ennemis: La Question coloniale dans l’histoire. Paris : Seuil, 2009
*LEVINE, Philippa. The British Empire : Sunrise to Sunset. London : Pearson Longman,
2007
LUGARD, Frederick John Dealtry. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. Edinburgh,
London: William Blackwood, 1922
MANCERON, Gilles. Marianne et les colonies. Paris: La Découverte, 2003
*McDONOUGH, Frank. The British Empire, 1815-1914. London: Hodder, 2009
MEREDITH, Martin. The State of Africa: A History of Fifty years of Independence. London: The Free
press, 2006
PIQUET, Caroline. Histoire du canal de Suez. Paris : Perrin, 2009
PORTER, Bernard. The Lion’s Share. A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-1983. 2nd ed. London:
Longman, 1984
ROBINSON, Ronald, and John GALLAGHER, with Alice DENNY. Africa and the Victorians: The
Official Mind of Imperialism. London: Macmillan, 1961.
SEELEY, John. The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz,
1884.
SKED, Alan and Chris COOK. Post-War Britain: A Political History (1945-1992). 4th ed. London:
Penguin, 1993
THUAL, François. Les Conflits identitaires. Paris: IRIS/Ellipses, 1995
34
Exemple de devoir possible.
Comment the following extract:
THE WIND OF CHANGE, Harold Macmillan, Speech of 1960
No one could fail to be impressed with the immense material progress which has been achieved. That
all this has been accomplished in so short a time is a striking testimony to the skill, energy and
initiative of your people. We in Britain are proud of the contribution we have made to this remarkable
achievement. Much of it has been financed by British capital. …
… As I've travelled around the Union I have found everywhere, as I expected, a deep preoccupation
with what is happening in the rest of the African continent. I understand and sympathise with your
interests in these events and your anxiety about them.
Ever since the break up of the Roman empire one of the constant facts of political life in Europe has
been the emergence of independent nations. They have come into existence over the centuries in
different forms, different kinds of government, but all have been inspired by a deep, keen feeling of
nationalism, which has grown as the nations have grown. In the twentieth century, and especially
since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been
repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who
have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power. Fifteen years ago this movement
spread through Asia. Many countries there, of different races and civilisations, pressed their claim to
an independent national life. Today the same thing is happening in Africa, and the most striking of all
the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African
national consciousness. In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere.
The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of
national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies
must take account of it.
Well you understand this better than anyone, you are sprung from Europe, the home of nationalism,
here in Africa you have yourselves created a free nation. A new nation. Indeed in the history of our
times yours will be recorded as the first of the African nationalists. This tide of national
consciousness which is now rising in Africa, is a fact, for which both you and we, and the other
nations of the western world are ultimately responsible. For its causes are to be found in the
achievements of western civilisation, in the pushing forwards of the frontiers of knowledge, the
applying of science to the service of human needs, in the expanding of food production, in the
speeding and multiplying of the means of communication, and perhaps above all and more than
anything else in the spread of education. As I have said, the growth of national consciousness in Africa
is a political fact, and we must accept it as such. That means, I would judge, that we've got to come to
terms with it. I sincerely believe that if we cannot do so we may imperil the precarious balance
between the East and West on which the peace of the world depends.
The world today is divided into three main groups. First there are what we call the Western Powers.
You in South Africa and we in Britain belong to this group, together with our friends and allies in
other parts of the Commonwealth. In the United States of America and in Europe we call it the Free
World. Secondly there are the Communists – Russia and her satellites in Europe and China whose
population will rise by the end of the next ten years to the staggering total of 800 million. Thirdly,
there are those parts of the world whose people are at present uncommitted either to Communism or
to our Western ideas. In this context we think first of Asia and then of Africa. As I see it the great
issue in this second half of the twentieth century is whether the uncommitted peoples of Asia and
35
Africa will swing to the East or to the West. Will they be drawn into the Communist camp? Or will
the great experiments in self-government that are now being made in Asia and Africa, especially
within the Commonwealth, prove so successful, and by their example so compelling, that the balance
will come down in favour of freedom and order and justice? The struggle is joined, and it is a struggle
for the minds of men. What is now on trial is much more than our military strength or our diplomatic
and administrative skill. It is our way of life. The uncommitted nations want to see before they
choose.
Harold Macmillan, speech to South African Parliament, Feb.3, 1960
POINTS TO STUDY (sorry for the rainbow-like aspect of it all, only meant to simplify
your reading of my comment):
- Race relations (underlined, black) in South Africa, not only between whites and blacks,
but also, as Macmillan implies, between British and Dutch (see first paragraph, underlined,
black): the politics of apartheid are NOT British, they should not be allowed to be thought to
be of British origin, and the tradition of the British empire has nothing to do with racial
segregation and apartheid (since 1948 in South Africa). In 1956, the South African PM, Hans
Strijdom, had declared before the self-same parliament Macmillan was addressing: “Either
the white man dominates or the black man takes over. The only way the Europeans can
maintain supremacy is by domination. And the only way they can maintain domination is by
withholding the vote from non-Europeans” (Strijdom, quoted in Martin Meredith, The State of
Africa, p. 117). For the “white south” as a whole, people of European descent represented
European civilization in a sea of backwardness, and of course they saw political domination
and the appropriation of black lands in the same light the first settlers had seen their role of
defenders of civilization. They tried to push the case for segregation as being applied for the
greater good of Europe and Western civilization.
- Western civilization and the Soviet scarecrow (underlined, blue): in the post-WWII
world (cold war), this idea put forward by some white settlers (in the case of the wind of
change, white DUTCH/Boers/Afrikaners, NOT British) that their forced presence upheld the
domination of the West was reversed by Macmillan. White settlers had tried, in South Africa
or in Rhodesia to link black African nationalism to Marxism, which, to be perfectly honest,
was not a really difficult task. Precedents in Ghana and in the Congo (Patrice Lumumba,
Congolese independence: 1960), as well as during the pan-African conference held in
Manchester in 1945 (during which a programme of “African socialism based on the tactics of
positive action without violence” was adopted) served the anti-Soviet rhetoric of those who
opposed black African nationalism on anti-Marxist grounds. To these white settlers of
European extraction, the Soviets were approaching African nationalists to further the USSR
claims to the mineral riches of the south (diamonds, gold and silver): upholding white
minority rule would thus have been part of a broader struggle of the West against the East (the
Soviet bloc).
Here of course, you will have noticed that this is not what Macmillan says at all: in the last
paragraphs (underlined, blue), he precisely reversed this rhetoric, saying that the Soviet world
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feeds on misery and distress. It is through the negative model of the West (if the West
behaves like tyrants) that the East will emerge. But there is also an old imperial remnant to be
seen in Macmillan’s rhetoric (remember he had been Eden’s number one supporter during the
Suez crisis of 1956): he only understood the world in terms of European civilization. There
were two options for Africa, and two options only: either the “Free world”, or the communist
bloc; either freedom or slavery (“satellites” driven from Moscow of Beijing, the term itself
implying lack of freedom from a centralized worldwide administration). There is no third
way, no “non-aligned” possibility, no system that Africa (or Asia for that matter) could follow
to accommodate the populations there. It’s either them, or us. He cannot consider another
model of development but that put forward by Europe (in its Moscow derivation, or its
London-Washington form).
- Nationalism vs “African national consciousness” (underlined, green): you will notice the
use of the expression “national consciousness” (used 5 times over) as opposed to that of
“nationalism” (used “only” twice, underlined, green). Clearly, he praises the model of the
Nation-State that emerged in Europe in the late 19th (NOT XIXth) century, implying that
AFRICAN NATIONALISTS ARE THEMSELVES THE HEIRS OF WESTERN
CIVILIZATION, BE THEY BLACK OR WHITE. Indeed, he goes as far as to say that the
Boers (later, the Afrikaans) were “the first of the African nationalists”, and that they (the
whites) should be that afraid of black nationalists. A Nation-State, as defined by the UN, is:
“one where the great majority are conscious of a common identity and share
the same culture" . The nation-state is an area where the cultural boundaries
match up with the political boundaries. The ideal of 'nation-state' is that the
state incorporates people of a single ethnic stock and cultural traditions.
However, most contemporary states are polyethnic. Thus, it can be argued that
the nation-state "[...] would exist if nearly all the members of a single nation
were organised in a single state, without any other national communities being
present. Although the term is widely used, no such entities exist"
(UNESCO
website,
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-humansciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/nation-state/).
He tries to reassure the South African whites while at the same time establishing a difference
between nationalism (this idea that led to the building of nation-states) and national
consciousness, since after “nationalism” in its first phase was what led to colonialism. A
second interesting feature is the model of decolonization and nationalism Macmillan puts
forward: the model is clearly the Indian one (Indian Congress). Once more, the model
implemented by Britain works (see next section), as opposed to segregationist tendencies that
can only lead to conflict and political destabilization. Remember other African precedents: at
the time of his speech, the war of Algerian independence had already been on for 6 years, and
no sign of appeasement was clearly visible yet. The war itself (1954-1962) cost France not
only money, but also an international image and its stability: De Gaulle was called back and a
new constitution (Fifth Republic, Oct. 4, 1958) was drawn.
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- (De)colonization à la British: compromise and pragmatism, or the anti-Roman model
(underlined, red). Two cases in point: the reference to the Roman empire and to the Indian
Congress. The reference to the Roman empire is interesting because the British rather saw
themselves as the heirs to the Greek, rather than the Roman, empire. Macmillan himself in
1957 had written in an oft-quoted private letter that “We are Greeks in this American empire.
You will find Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans – great big, vulgar, more
vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt”.
It was already, three years prior to the wind…speech, an indirect recognition that Britain had
been definitely superseded by the US.
In the same spirit, Evelyn Baring, Earl of Cromer (former Consul-General in Egypt), in
Ancient and Modern Imperialism (one among other textbooks of the imperialism of the post1885 era), published in 1910, had already explained the difference he saw between Roman
and Greek imperialisms: “if we ask ourselves, he wrote, whether the Romans (…) succeeded
as well as any modern people in assimilating the nations which the prowess of their arms had
brought under their sway, the answer cannot be doubtful. They succeeded far better. A great
deal has been said on the subject of the inability of modern European Powers to assimilate
subject races. It is generally held that this inability is especially marked in the case of the
British. The British generally possess in a very high degree the power of acquiring the
sympathy and confidence of any primitive races with which they are brought in contact”. So
much for the Roman empire. As to the Greek experience, here is what Cromer wrote: “The
two main agencies which were employed in the Hellenization of the ancient world were
commerce and culture” (Cromer, Ancient and Modern Imperialism, pp. 72-5 (selections)).
Those who will have the patience to read through these two quotations will easily realise
where the British stood: Rome is the father of continental assimilationist empires (Russia,
Germany, the Turkey of 1900), while Greece would be the mother of maritime empires.
Thus Britain is clearly a Greek empire, and the assimilationist tendency witnessed in the case
of South Africa (ruled by Dutch, not by British) have nothing to do with Britain’s traditions:
here is a call to the South African Parliament to do away with such disastrous policies (lack of
respect for ethnic/racial minorities).
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