However, whilst this theory has often been expounded, it is not necessarily accurate. In most of the empire, nationalists movements were still embryonic – India and Asia being two exceptions that spring to mind; the Indian National Congress had been established in 1885, and many Asian nationalist groups had been encouraged by the Japanese during their occupation during the war. In some areas, Britain had to invent nationalist fervour, notably in northern Nigeria. Britain was clearly grooming and coaching potential successors, which would point to a more calculated policy, rather one forced upon them by outside circumstances. The domino theory does help explain why, once it had started, decolonisation progressed so rapidly: Ceylon quickly followed India, as did the rest of India, and after the Sudan and Ghana gained their independence in 1956 and 1957 respectively, nearly all the rest of Britain’s African possessions were relinquished between 1960 and 1964. Ghana was a conscious British experiment – she did possess a wealthy, well-educated, politically conscious elite, but the same degree of awareness did not extend to her neighbours. Whilst the successes of other countries undoubtedly gave additional countries the impetus to develop their nationalist movements, to a certain extent they were still relatively weak. It was difficult to retain mass support for prolonged periods of time; many colonies, like Nigeria, India, Ceylon, Burma and Malaya, found it difficult to reconcile their diverse ethnic and religious groups, and yet, after 1945, they all found it relatively easy to secure their independence. Therefore the existence of strong, concerted nationalist pressure is far from uniform across the empire, and cannot alone explain the nature of British decolonisation. It ignores a certain degree of British complicity, even desire, to break up the empire, and thus other causes closer to home must be investigated.
Although Britain was one of the victors of the Second World War, she emerged almost bankrupt. Because of this, it has been argued, she simply could no longer afford her empire. In the late 1940s and 1950s she faced periodic balance of payment crises, there was the problem of convertibility, and many of her colonies became her creditors, rather than debtors. A number of dependencies were incredibly unprofitable, and continued subsidisation was no longer an option. The sheer cost of manpower and other resources that the upkeep of extensive imperial possessions were crippling, and once the empire has lost its economic benefit, there was no reason to keep it. Therefore it was a deliberate decision to dismantle it and thereby relieve herself the burden it had become. The need to relinquish the territories as soon as possible also helps explain some of the compromises she allowed to pass – such as the partition of India and Pakistan, which please very few, least of all the government in London. In the post-war period, the focus of Britain’s international trade also shifted: in 1900, almost 75% of her trade had been conducted with her empire; by 1945 this had dropped to 30%. The North Atlantic and Europe were now her predominant trading partners, and imperial preference rendered almost useless. The colonies were also increasingly exporting and importing from foreign countries. Finally, the military expenditure needed to retain a significant presence in the colonies, was, at a time when governments were trying to curb defence spending and balance budgets, became unjustifiable. However, there are also signs that this argument ignores certain economic facts of the post-war period that would have continued to ensure the empire’s economic feasibility.
In 1945, the empire was not necessarily such an economic burden. Colonies such as the Gold Coast, Malaya and Burma, generated much needed hard currency – i.e. dollars – within the Sterling Area. The empire had also enabled Britain to recover much faster than others from the world slump that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and there was no clear indication that empire could again help the mother country in the post war period. Certainly, attempts were made to increase the profitability and economic resources of less developed territories, such as the failed groundnut scheme in Tanganyika. The immediate post-war Labour government was firmly committed to such development and reform of the colonies, not abandonment; the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin declared, as regards to the empire “our only crime is not exploitation; it’s neglect”. These policies could be described as ‘neo-colonialism’, or, as Cain and Hopkins prefer, a ‘second colonial occupation. Why pursue such a policy, and invest vast sums of money in schemes like the ill-fated groundnuts plan, if the government was also planning to withdraw as soon as possible. Even after decolonisation, Britain still wished to retain close trading links with her former dependencies, and there is nothing to suggest that equally favourable relations could have negotiated without necessarily relinquishing all political control. To quote Cain and Hopkins again, “Liquidation was not on the agenda: the empire was to be given a shot in the arm rather than in the head.” However, as time passed, and Britain’s perilous economic situation improved only slowly, the financial burden of empire certainly aided the government’s willingness to loosen their ties, but it is harder to argue that it was the catalyst.
Another factor that helps explain Britain’s rapid decolonisation was the international position she found herself in after the end of the war. She was struggling to cope with the burdens of being one of the world’s greatest powers (which she still was for a least a decade, until the 1956 Suez Crisis) and her new, untraditional commitments to Europe. The focus of her international relations followed the change in her trade patterns; she was forced to look to the North Atlantic and Europe, rather than the empire. As already mentioned, she could not afford to maintain her traditional military commitment to the colonies at the same time as the new responsibilities in Europe, especially in Germany. Globally, the concept of empires was increasingly unfashionable. It was very hard to reconcile the retention imperial possessions with the wartime rhetoric of safeguarding the freedom and democracy of Europe. Why should these principles of self-determination not be extended to the rest of the world? Considering that a number of colonies had sent troops to fight in Europe’s war, it was only just that they should be rewarded for their sacrifice. The fact that the war had been, in no small part, prompted by the colonial aggression of the Axis Powers also helped to undermine colonialist ideology. The strength of the US’s anti-imperialism is also important – given how reliant the UK was on America, both financially and for security, she was susceptible to pressure to relinquish her colonies. This strategic dependence on the US was reinforced after 1956, when even the most stubborn right-wingers were forced to concede that Britain was no longer a superpower.
However, even these claims cannot fully explain the reasons behind Britain’s decolonisation. The US was initially hostile towards imperialism, but soon recognised it as a useful bulwark against Russian aggression and expansion, and were prepared to accept it, as long as Britain made moves to modernise it, which they did. Besides, the view that American was anti-colonialist was only a western one – the Soviet Union regarded much of America’s ‘defence of the free world’ as imperialism by another name. The above argument assumes that Britain’s governments made a conscious decision to focus on Europe at the expense of the empire, but there is little evidence that this was the case. She was still aiming to be a global, rather than just a regional, leader, and any claims that this was a deliberate policy were merely attempts to justify policies that were chaotically and haphazardly formulated. The view that Britain was more prepared to let go of her imperial commitments because empires were suddenly ‘unfashionable’ does not explain why France and Portugal, two previously great colonial powers, were determined to cling on to their empires, no matter the cost. To a certain extent, France saw her empire as the only way to restore national pride (following the humiliation of the Nazi occupation) and retain some degree of global status, but it undermines the idea that empires were necessarily now seen as hopelessly outdated. On the other hand, the loss of the colonies can be attributed, in part, to the loss of Britain’s remnants of superpower status. As already argued, Britain could still be considered one of the major international players until 1956 – the year before Ghana’s independence. Britain had conceded the principle of African self-government, but had envisioned that it would take a number of years to materialise. The process was, however, accelerated by the dent to her global status – though this theory does not explain the earlier fall of India, Ceylon and Burma.
One final theory that has not yet been explored is the idea that the domestic electorate was growing increasingly indifferent to the preservation of the empire. What had previously been thought of as a matter of national pride, was fasting losing importance. The population was now committed to the new welfare state, and considered empire and defence expenditure to be diverting essential funding away from where it was most needed. Darwin also claims that a new “consumer-orientated society became increasingly impatient with old imperial patriotism.” Thus the empire was condemned as an unfashionable, expensive anachronism at home as well as abroad. Despite the rhetoric of the Conservatives into the 1950s, once India, the ‘jewel’ of the possessions, had gone, there was resignation that the fall of the rest of the empire was inevitable. There are, however, also problems with this argument. Most of the population was still in favour of Britain retaining her international status, and there is no doubt that a commitment to empire was still bound up in that. They may well have believed the rhetoric that the process of decolonisation was Britain’s duty, it was necessary and inevitable, and that it was a well thought-out and deliberate policy – all ways of trying to avoid admitting defeat and a loss of status by trying to claim the responsible moral high ground – but very few after 1945 were overtly in favour of the principle of decolonisation.
The post-war period was not the first period of decolonisation Europe had experienced – England had lost the thirteen American colonies in the eighteenth century, and conceded autonomy to the dominions by 1850, whilst Spain and Portugal also lost their South American territories in the nineteenth century. This essay has not looked at Britain’s loss of influence in her ‘informal’ empire – mainly the Middle East and South America – but it should be remembered that she was never solely focused on the colonies she was directly responsible for; she always saw herself as a truly global power, and these unofficial semi-colonial links were as important to her as her official empire. The ease with which she was able to break off the colonial ties can sometimes be overemphasised. Whilst it was a great deal more peaceful and simple than the French or Portuguese experience, there was still a great deal of bloodshed and resistance. The Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the large number of Indians who lost their life in the violence struggle than accompanied partition, the civil war and bloody military rule that has been a feature of the subsequent histories of a number of former colonies, from Sierra Leone to Burma, and the prolonged struggle in Southern Rhodesia between London, the white settlers and the black majority, all cast doubt on the so-called effortless and peaceful nature of British decolonisation.
Nevertheless, as a general rule, decolonisation was achieved surprisingly easily. There is not really one single explanation for this. Despite post-war moves to introduce greater degrees of autonomy and constitutionalism in her dependencies, it is very unlikely that anyone expected full independence to follow so quickly. India’s independence in 1947 is not surprising – Attlee had long been a sympathiser of the nationalist demands, and the situation soon spiralled out of control, and British withdrawal, which was already seen as inevitable, was rapid. This was a pattern that was to be followed in a number of other colonies, such as Kenya, but not in all. The fall of the other Asian colonies can be explained in terms of the Japanese occupation – they had encouraged the development of nationalist groups to try and prevent the return of the British. When the British did return, they, like the French, found it incredibly difficult to re-impose the pre-war order (unlike the French, they realised that trying to use force would prove counter-productive, as well as tie up valuable resources that could be better employed elsewhere). This last point helps to explain just how Britain was able to decolonise so easily. It was far from intentional, but as situations arose, she still believed that she could retain useful links (especially in terms of trade) through the Commonwealth. Because she had always seen herself as a global power, and continued to do so, she did not think that the loss of empire necessarily entailed a loss of status – she still had an important role to play in world affairs, a role denied France, which helps explain why she tried to hold on to the last remnants of her imperial possessions for so long. Thus, whilst she may not have anticipated the speed at which her empire collapsed, she was able to rationalise the loss, and even perhaps welcome it.
Bibliography:
John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation, Macmillan (1988)
M.E. Chamberlain, Decolonisation, Blackwell (1999)
P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction 1914-1990, Longman (1993)
