Evaluation Of The Reasons Of The Dismantling Of The British Empire After 1945
The definition of an empire is when a group of countries are partially ruled by just a single monarchy. In the 16th century Britain had already started to establish many colonies, by the 17th century Britain’s empire began to expand as they had colonies in many places such as the West Indies and South America, this eventually all came to an end after the ‘British Revolution’, just under 200 years later Britain decided to build a second Empire ‘based on British sea power’ just before the war started. before the war began Britain managed to control and preserve Colonies worldwide, doing this provided treasured raw materials; However, In the late 19th century, the economic depression was declining by other competition in the industrial side such as Germany and the United States ‘Who surpassed Britannia in terms on industrial power, economic power, Economic wealth and started to dominate trade’. So, due to this competition that Britain were facing, they found it difficult to maintain the British empire due to its lack of profits and tradability. The economic status of the British Empire seemed to gradually decline and the events of the imperial Boer War that cost the British Empire £200 million pounds did not help the cause. Eventually the UK was on the verge of Bankruptcy however through the help of Wall Street it Kept Britain in the war, however the US was also a major source that helped Britain by providing purely to ‘sustain the war’. Thus throughout this dissertation I will be evaluating the dismantling of the British Empire after 1945, I will have several reasons and points to support my point of view.
India helped Britain in many ways during the year of 1947, thus becoming independent. Not longer than one year later, ‘Communist Guerrillas launched a violent campaign aimed at forcing Britain from Malaya’. Many people lost their lives due to this war, but ‘an effective political and military response prevented a communist takeover’ By the 31st of August 1957 Malaya became an independent Democracy, Britain knew that if they had carried on fighting this war it could eventually be catastrophic and end up killing thousands more people which was not necessary especially just after world war 2 where many soldiers had lost their lives then. Britain quickly released Palestine in the middle east to prevent any other wars between them which, was a wise choice considering the British empire did not have the sufficient funds at the time and purely could not afford to lose any more people to fight to maintain colonialism, as this eventually could have lead to strikes which would have then eventually lead to a civil war in Britain that would have ended the British empire for good. No countries in the continent of Africa managed to reach independence till 1957, ‘Ghana became the First African Colony to reach Independence’. Eventually by the year 1967 over 20 British colonies became independent; at this point Britain knew that they were out of their league as this started to become colossal as other countries knew that there were colonies fighting for independence so then word passed and then they believed that they had the capability to do the same as they eventually knew that Britain did not have the money or the muscle to start wars with these colonies therefore letting them have independence.
The British Empire needed to make a massive turn to repair itself and get back on the high horse. Britain lost the colony in 1967 ‘that had provided much of its military east of Suez, as well as paying rent for the hire of much of Britain’s own army. ’ This lead to a massive decline within the British Empires defence which made things worse than they ever were in the past. After these events had occurred it was bizarre that India’s Victory against Britain did not up leading to Britain having a sudden review of its world interests and an appropriate decision to ‘abandon its far-flung commitments from the Caribbean to Hong Kong. ’
The US and Soviet Union were Dominating Britain, the British Empires economy was crumpling over the years ‘the labour government had embarked on a huge and expensive programme of social reform. ’ The labour foreign policy was taken over by two important British leaders at the time one was the prime minister of Britain known as Clement Attlee and his worker that was also a good friend of his Ernest Bevin, however Britain’s future came out completely unexpectedly due to their input to the labour foreign policy. These men believed that the loss of economy for Great Britain and the Sterling survival as a ‘great trading currency required closer integration with the old white dominions, especially Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. ’ both Attlee and Bevan claiming that the decrease of Britain’s economy could be beneficial to them as it means that they could get into closer relations via trading with both New Zealand and South Africa. However, this decision would have been seen as quite a selfish move at the time because firstly they are in a bad position due to their lack of economy and secondly because they will be using other countries to help them ruin the economy further as this was seen as more of a spontaneous option rather than a well thought about idea that could potentially benefit the British empire both economy and military wise.
The British Empire wanted to benefit as much as they could from the tropical colonies that they owned as they were aware that products such as Tin, Cocoa and rubber could potentially be sold for a lot of money at the time, meaning that Britain could still increase its economy through trading. It wasn’t the fact that it was an Economic major decision. ‘Britain's strategic defence against the new Soviet threat required forward air bases from which to bomb Southern Russia - the industrial arsenal of the Soviet Union. ' With no other options this meant that they had to stay on in the Middle east even after the dislocation of British control condition in Palestine and its hasty evacuation in 1948. It was Britain’s priority to remain and ‘uphold third great power’ and it this could only happen if they could maintain the British Empire, the British were determined ‘to hang on to their treaties bases, including the vast Suez Canal Zone’ This was so that they could withhold against the Soviet Influence in Asia and expected Australia’s help in order to do so. However, these decisions did end up causing a huge back fire because they chose to be greedy and rather than letting the countries become independent and manage to find other/safer ways to build economy, it started a war.
The British government had trouble to ‘achieve its post imperial war vision’ in the 1950s. The Government changed the commonwealth for India in turn for allowing Britain’s monarchy to remain head of the Common wealth. They consented that they need to adjust independence to their colonies and upsurge self-governing approaches. Eventually Britain allowed some of their valuable colonies independence such as Malaya and Ghana, however the deal was for them to still be in Britain’s financial and strategic influence. The British government invested in many weapons in order for them to keep its old role as ‘the great lender of the capital’ they did this in order to prepare for the ant colonialism happening in some of the countries. This portrays that the British government desperately wanted their old role back to be taken seriously and to increase their economy to maintain the British Empire so that it would stop declining and they thought that to do this they needed to start a war and fight the anti-colonial countries that stood against their political leadership. However, things did not go to plan as them staying in the Middle East lead them to confront the president of Egypt which then lead for them to release his presidency by order of the ‘collusion with Israel. ’ The Suez disaster in 1956 was a reckless decision made by Britain as it ended up not just affecting Britain’s military and financial support, but they also ‘destroyed much of what remained Britain’s influence in the middle east’. Britain had some control over other colonial territories and these countries had heard about how fast their country was developing this in exchange encouraged them to ‘strengthen nationalist movements. ’ As they knew that The British government did not have the strength and money to start another war, so these countries took advantage of this so that they could have independence and so that they could control their own political changes for their benefit; Eventually, Britain was struggling to move forward and control all these political changes happening around them, so then Britain’s role as the ‘third great power and deputy leader of the western Alliance was threatened by the resurgence of France and West Germany. ’ Britain’s economy was not rising at all, to be exact their economy was worse than it was before and stuck. Britain went through extreme lengths in order for them to have power not just in Europe but in the world, however due to poor choices and potentially greed, it did lead to a huge decline in the economic and social systems which could have been avoided, however they always wanted more, even in desperate situations, Britain wanted to best.
In the conditions that the British Empire was in, they were struggling to fund and sustain the ‘Semblance of British World Power. ’ The EEC was Britain’s one of last its last options to increase economy, however they were rejected twice, however they also done this because their intentions to ‘partly smash the Franco German alliance. ’ Britain chose to remove their leadership from the remaining colonies so that they could avoid an economic issue with the nationalist movements, so after this ‘it had publicly scheduled a degree of self-government for Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. All became independent in 1961 and 1963. ’ Eventually, Britain started to lose all their colonies for their loss of power. However, even after all of this, British leaders still thought that there was a chance that Britain would still remain in the ‘top table’ as due they believed that they had an influence on the commonwealth that their ex colonies had joined, which they were harshly wrong about as There was a crisis going in the southern Rhodesia in 1965 known as the ‘white settler revolt’ which Britain attempted to stop, which they failed to do leading to a huge embarrassment and ‘drew fierce condemnation from many new common wealth states. ’ The British economy was going south and eventually they could not bare the pain as there were issues surrounding them that they had no control over, eventually ‘devaluation of the pound in November 1967 was followed within weeks by the decision to withdraw Britain’s military presence east of Suez. ’ Putting Britain out of its misery at this point as they were left with no other choice.
The 1970s was the final fall of the British Empire, Britain eventually joined the European community in the 1970s and had finally come to it end. However, if an empire has ended, it is hardly ever a ‘tidy affair’. In the late 1970s a rebellion known as The Rhodesian, they fought a war with Britain as they demanded to keep the ‘Falkland Islands’. As of Hong Kong they decided to sustain the tacit Chinese agreement as a British dependency until 1997. The British Government had to eventually forget about their political issues in the past and come to terms with it all, this was so that they can finally be able to move forward and build up their legacy again and try to make it more successful by making wise investments rather than doing risky and spontaneous ones. In the 21st century there were still imperial links that had survived throughout the many years these were the links based mainly both on law and language, this is good as it potentially portrays a platform for a ‘growing importance in a globalised world. ’ This is a slight benefit from that the British Empire concluded with their colonist links as it made a partial difference to some of their societies in the long term which is what was one of the main goals that was to be achieved. The British Empire was a massive experience in British history and one of the most talked about events in Britain as it had affected Britain so much at its peak time due to all its colonies and the expectation of the common wealth as it was known that even common wealth had enough it was ‘bruised and battered’ in the 1960s however it has managed to remain a useful utility in the global network of informal connections.
In conclusion, The British Empire came to an end due to their desperate need of wanting to remain third world power and because of the money and soldiers they lost due to the wars that they had fought to retain the British empire, even though these were drastic moves and intentions, they felt that this had to be done in order to be seen as a powerful country that was never in need of economic and military help which ended up backfiring as they lost all this power and needed help from other countries as that they could sustain the British Empire, however even after this help Britain wanted to remain financial support from some colonies which eventually chose to fight back.
