The Second World War: International Relations and Colonial Policy

Abstract

The Second World War heightened both the harsh reality and the rhetoric of imperial commitments. On the one hand it revealed Britain’s inability to defend a two-hemisphere empire, plunged the country deeper into debt, encouraged nationalist resistance and subjected Britain to American anti-imperialism. On the other hand, the concept of ‘trusteeship’ was refurbished in the fashionable language of ‘partnership’ and the government pledged itself not only to the welfare of colonial peoples but also to their eventual self-government. Under the impact of war the British people, as A. J. P. Taylor has put it, ‘ceased to believe’ in empire.6 Yet this view of the relationship between war and decolonization must be qualified not least by the fact that the governing elite had other ideas. Churchill, for one, had not become the King’s first minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. Clearly, imperial resources, outposts and troops were being harnessed to the world-wide effort. Imperial solidarity, indeed, was both a war aim and a means to that end. After the fall of France (June 1940) Britain and her Empire stood alone against the Axis — ‘this was their finest hour’.