Informal Imperialism and Total War: Britain and Spain in the First World War

Abstract

The 1914–1918 World War, the first total war fought across the globe, shattered Britain’s imperial model and fundamentally changed the country’s relationships with its colonies, formal and informal, including with Spain. The war provides a particularly important insight into the changing relationship between the two countries. Britain was again ready and able to use military force to maintain its dominant role in Spain and immediately blockaded the Iberian Peninsula. This exercise of informal imperial power was designed above all to protect its crucial Gibraltar naval base and to ensure the supply of mineral critical for Britain’s munitions industry. A year later, in 1915, this control was reinforced with the introduction of an administrative licencing system for companies wishing to import or export goods within Spain itself. By dramatically limiting Spain’s freedom to determine crucial aspects of both domestic and foreign policy making, Britain demonstrated the continuing reach of its formal and informal power. However, as the war progressed, the growing constraints on Britain’s exercise of its power were revealed. In a far cry from the unchallenged dominance that it had enjoyed at the peak of its imperial power in the previous century, Britain found its ability to exert effective influence in Spain now depended on close collaboration with its wartime allies. The return of peace was to show this dependency was not simply a product of wartime emergency but reflected a growing fragility in Britain’s traditional grip of Spain’s economic and foreign policies.