Abstract
Two short periods since the Second World War stand out as phases of rapid change in Britain’s relations with her empire and in her general international position. Between 1945 and 1948, the bulk of her Asian dependencies were granted independence, Britain abandoned the Palestine mandate and the goal of self-government was loudly proclaimed in the West African colonies. The primacy of American power in the West was recognised and the overriding importance of close Anglo-American cooperation became the leading principle of British foreign policy. Britain’s place in the world was broadly redefined in official thinking to accord with these new conditions. Then, between 1959 and 1964, further and more drastic changes took place which marked the onset of Britain’s final transformation from a global power with an overseas empire and considerable capacity for independent action, into a regional power whose remaining overseas possessions were more of an embarrassment than a source of strength, trade or influence; and a power whose economic performance placed her at best somewhere below the top of the second division. In this second and decisive period of readjustment, almost all the remaining colonial territories passed rapidly into independence; the connections with the Commonwealth states were steadily attenuated by Britain’s declared intention to seek membership of the European Economic Community; growing economic weakness undermined British influence and imposed new constraints on Britain’s military capability; and the consolidation of Western Europe under French leadership eroded Britain’s old status within the Western Alliance and inflicted a punishing series of diplomatic defeats on London.
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Notes and References
P. Darby, British defence policy East of Suez 1947–68 (London, 1973) p. 99.
As for example in Malaya, Kuwait, Aden and, as late as 1982, the Falkland Islands.
H. Macmillan, Riding the storm 1956–59 (London, 1971) p. 323.
On this J. Bayliss, Anglo-American defence relations (London, 1981).
Note to Foreign Secretary, 22 Dec. 1959. H. Macmillan, Pointing the way 1959–61 (London, 1972) p. 112.
See M. Lipton, ‘Neither partnership nor dependence … Indo-British relations since 1947’ in W. H. Morris-Jones and G. Fischer (eds), Decolonisation and after (London, 1980).
See W. A. Nielsen, The great powers and Africa (London, 1969), chs 8, 9 and table 20.
See below, pp. 235 ff.
J. D. B. Miller, Survey of British Commonwealth affairs: problems of expansion and attrition 1953–69 (London, 1974) p. 26.
M. S. Rajan, India in world affairs 1954–56 (London, 1964) pp. 150–68.
Ibid., p. 334.
See Canadian prime minister to British prime minister, 1 Nov. 1956. L. Pearson, Memoirs vol. 2 (London, 1974) pp. 238–9.
See especially his remarks in Australia and New Zealand. Macmillan, Riding the storm, pp. 400–1, 404.
For his enthusiastic report to the Commons, H. C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 582, col. 1215; and to the cabinet, Riding the storm p. 413.
Ibid., p. 395: note dated 19 Jan. 1958.
See Macmillan to Humphrey (U.S. Treasury Secretary) 28 Nov. 1958. Macmillan, Pointing the way, p. 47.
Macmillan, Riding the storm, p. 379.
Quoted in A. M. Gollin, Proconsul in politics (London, 1964) p. 106.
See the discussion in G. Parmentier, ‘The British press in the Suez crisis’, Historical Journal 23, 2 (1980) pp. 435–88.
D. J. Goldsworthy, Colonial issues in British politics 1945–61 (Oxford, 1971) pp. 320, 334.
Ibid., ch. 9.
D. J. Morgan, The official history of colonial development vol. 5 (London, 1980) p. 102.
Goldsworthy, Colonial issues, p. 343; Lord Butler, The art of the possible (London, 1971) p. 209.
See Robert Skidelsky’s penetrating account of Labour Party attitudes in ‘Lessons of Suez’ in V. Bogdanor and R. Skidelsky (eds), The age of affluence (London, 1970).
There was no grand inquisition into the causes of Britain’s diplomatic humiliation.
M. Camps, Britain and the European Community 1945–63 (London, 1964) pp. 30–1.
See Cabinet Defence Committee D.O. (48) 19th Meeting, 16 Sept. 1948, CAB 131/5.
Camps, European Community, pp. 45–8.
For this plan, Macmillan, Riding the storm, pp. 80–8.
Camps, European Community, pp. 147–72.
West Germany became a fully sovereign state in 1955.
Macmillan’s words: memo to Selwyn Lloyd, 28 Nov. 1958. Macmillan, Pointing the way, p. 47.
U. W. Kitzinger, The politics and economics of European integration (rep., Westport, Conn., 1976) p. 191; Camps, European Community, p. 280.
Diary 9 July 1960, Macmillan, Pointing the way, p. 316.
For some traces of this, M. Beloff, Imperial sunset vol. 1 (London, 1969) ch. 1.
Susan Strange, Sterling and British policy (London, 1971) p. 181.
M. M. Postan, An economic history of Western Europe 1945–1964 (London, 1967) p. 93.
D. H. Aldcroft, The European economy 1914–1970 (London, 1978) p. 161.
M. W. Kirby, The decline of British economic power since 1870 (London, 1981) p. 119.
Cmnd. 1565 (1961), The United Kingdom and the European Economic Community p. 8.
Postan, Economic history, p. 94.
Aldcroft, European economy, p. 180.
See J. Black, ‘The volume and prices of British exports’ in G. N. D. Worswick and P. Ady (eds), The British economy in the 1950s (Oxford, 1962) p. 129.
Postan, Economic history, p. 75. Britain’s share was 22 per cent in 1937.
Cmnd. 827 (1959), Report of Committee on the working of the monetary system (Radcliffe Report) para. 653 ff.
See A. R. Conan, The problem of sterling (London, 1966) and the complaint voiced in The Economist, 13 September 1958, pp. 815–16.
See the case of India in 1956–57. A. Shonfield, British economic policy since the war (Harmondsworth, 1958) p. 130.
Shonfield, Economic policy, ch. 6 for a polemic.
Cmnd. 72 (1957), A European free trade area: U.K. Memorandum to the O.E.E.C. pp. 3, 6.
See the remarks to the Radcliffe Committee quoted in S. Brittan, Steering the economy (Harmondsworth, 1971) p. 223.
Cmnd. 539 (1958), Commonwealth trade and economic conference 15–20 September 1958.
Strange, Sterling, p. 193.
Radcliffe Report para. 657.
Ibid., para. 731.
Ibid., para. 739.
Brittan, Steering, p. 233.
C.J. Bartlett, The long retreat (London, 1972) pp. 64 ff.
Darby, Defence policy, pp. 101–2. Eden wanted to reduce manpower from 800,000 (1956) to 445,000 (1960).
Ibid., pp. 102–6.
Cmnd. 124 (1957), Defence: outline of future policy.
Ibid., p. 7.
See C. D. Cohen, British economic policy 1960–69 (London, 1971) p. 18.
The worst balance of payments for a decade. See Brittan, Steering, p. 251.
See the table in Cohen, Economic policy, p. 183.
Ibid., p. 179.
Brittan, Steering, p. 227.
Edward Heath’s phrase, Cmnd. 1565 (1961), p. 3.
See Cmnd. 2764 (1965), The National Plan.
Ibid., pp. 6, 70–1.
Brittan, Steering, p. 306.
Ibid., p. 307.
Strange, Sterling, p. 258.
Ibid.
See Worswick and Ady (eds), The British economy 1945–50 (Oxford, 1952) p. 479.
S. G. Sturmey, British shipping and world competition (London, 1962) p. 403.
Conan, Sterling, p. 13, table.
For discussion of this, J. O. N. Perkins, The sterling area and the Commonwealth: world economic growth (Cambridge, 1967) pp. 33–5.
Cmnd. 539 (1958), p. 5.
See Strange, Sterling, pp. 97–105.
See next section.
See discussion of ‘closed economies’ in A. G. Hopkins, An economic history of West Africa (London, 1973) pp. 171–2; and of ‘paraprotectionism’ in Morris-Jones and Fischer (eds), Decolonisation, pp. 158–92.
See his article in the Weekend Telegraph, 12 Mar. 1965, quoted in R. Blake, A History of Rhodesia (London, 1976) p. 328.
Endorsed in the Corfield Report, Cmnd. 1030 (1960).
Cmnd. 814 (1959), Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Enquiry (Devlin Report) para. 45.
Ibid., para. 43.
Ibid., para. 40.
Ibid., para. 63.
Ibid., para. 149.
Ibid., para. 256.
Ibid., para. 254.
Ibid., para. 2.
For the Commons debate on the Devlin Report, H. C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 610, cols 337–443.
Enoch Powell’s much admired speech on the Hola Camp inquiry made the same point: H. C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 610, col. 232 ff.
For these developments, W. J. Foltz, from French West Africa to the Mali Federation (New Haven, 1965);
G. Barraclough, Survey of international affairs 1959–60 (London, 1964) pp. 372–85.
Ibid., p. 398.
The Belgians were afraid that French influence might supplant theirs in an independent Congo. See C. Legum, Congo disaster (Harmondsworth, 1961) pp. 79–80, 85.
For De Gaulle’s explanation of French policy, see his Memoirs of hope (Eng. trans. London, 1971) pp. 37–67.
Barraclough, Survey, p. 412.
Diary, 4 Aug. 1960, Pointing the way, p. 264.
Ibid., pp. 263, 266.
For a survey, C. Hoskyns, The Congo since independence (London, 1965).
For white attitudes to Katanga, in Northern Rhodesia, D. C. Mulford, The Northern Rhodesian general election 1962 (Nairobi, 1964) p. 34.
Ibid., p.38.
For the effect on whites in Kenya, G. Wasserman, The politics of decolonisation: Kenya Europeans and the land issue 1960–65 (Cambridge, 1976) p. 74.
Lord Alport, The sudden assignment (London, 1965) pp. 95, 106.
For a hostile view of these attempts, C. Cruise O’Brien, To Katanga and Back (London, 1962).
Macmillan’s famous reference to a ‘wind of change’ was made in January 1960, well before its full strength had been felt.
J. Iliffe, A modern history of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979) p. 566.
Formalised at the Tanganyika constitutional conference, 27–29 Mar. 1961 at Dar-es Salaam. See H.C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 638, cols 12–15 (11 April 1961).
D. A. Low, Political parties in Uganda 1949–62 (London, 1962) p. 31.
‘African nationalism hates small states and will crush Buganda’, remarked Milton Obote in Feb. 1960. Keesing’s Archives 1960, 17259 (3 Feb. 1960).
See D. A. Low and A. Smith (eds), History of East Africa vol. 3 (Oxford, 1976) p. 96.
Direct election was applied elsewhere in Uganda.
Low, Uganda parties, p. 55.
Darby, British defence policy, pp. 125, 133, 185, 188, 203–5.
C. Rosberg and J. Nottingham, The myth of ‘Mau Mau’: nationalism in Kenya (Stanford, 1966) pp. 303–5.
Ibid., p. 307.
Wasserman, Kenya Europeans, ch. 2.
Low and Smith (eds), East Africa vol. 3, p. 257.
Wasserman, Kenya Europeans, p. 82.
Ibid., pp. 37–43.
Ibid., pp. 37–40. The chief appeal of the NKG was to whites in urban and commercial occupations, not to rural whites.
G. Bennett and C. Rosberg, The Kenyatta election: Kenya 1960–61 (London, 1961) p. 18.
The Economist, 9 Jan. 1960.
Wasserman, Kenya Europeans, p. 46.
Bennett and Rosberg, Kenyatta election, p. 41.
Wasserman, Kenya Europeans, p. 63.
Ibid., p. 84; for KANU-KADU negotiations, August 1962, pp. 88–9.
Cmnd. 1706 (1962), Report of the Kenya Constitutional Conference 1962, appendix.
The Economist, 14 April 1962, claimed that Kenya was penniless.
An argument pressed on the Colonial Secretary by Blundell in Oct. 1962, Wasserman, Kenya Europeans, p. 95.
H.C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 578, col. 924, 25 Nov. 1957.
Devlin Report paras. 104, 106–37.
Ibid., para. 258.
D. C. Mulford, Zambia: the politics of independence 1957–1964 (London, 1967) pp. 73, 76.
Sir Roy Welensky, Welensky’s 4000 days (London, 1964) p. 120.
Devlin Report para. 177.
Ibid., paras 43–5.
Mulford, Zambia, pp. 103–5.
Benson’s letter to the Colonial Office, quoted in ibid. pp.104–5.
Ibid., p. 107.
I. Henderson, ‘The origins of nationalism in East and Central Africa: the Zambian case’, Journal of African History XI, 4 (1970) pp. 598, 602.
See the memo of the Choma Tonga Native Authority, 18 Feb. 1960, Cmnd 1151 (1960), Advisory Commission on the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Report, Appendix VIII: Evidence vol. 1 (Northern Rhodesia) p. 3.
Memo by Central Africa Party, 15 Mar. 1960, ibid., vol. 1, p. 35.
In Northern Rhodesia the white population was concentrated on the Copperbelt and along the line-of-rail.
Cmnd. 1148 (1960), Report of the Advisory Commission on the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Monckton Report) para. 27.
Ibid., para. 71.
Ibid., para. 123.
Ibid., para. 100.
Ibid., para. 114.
Ibid., para. 221.
See Lord Home, The way the wind blows: an autobiography (London, 1976) pp. 129–30.
Macmillan to Welensky, 9 Jan. 1961, Pointing the way, p. 307.
Cmnd. 1291 (1961), Report of the Southern Rhodesia Constitutional Conference February 1961.
Mulford, Zambia, p. 182.
Macmillan, Pointing the way, p. 311; Alport, Assignment, p. 32.
Welensky, 4000 days, p. 306.
Macmillan’s diary, 4 Feb. 1961, Pointing the way, p. 309.
Mulford, Zambia, pp. 194–6.
For details, ibid., p. 210.
See above p. 254–55.
See Mulford, Zambia, p. 207.
Butler to Alport, 23 Aug. 1962, Art of the possible, p. 218.
Ibid., p. 214.
Where Britain intervened to protect Kuwait in 1961.
E. Monroe, The Mediterranean in politics (London, 1938) pp. 46–7.
Full Circle: the memoirs of Sir Anthony Eden (London, 1960) pp.385–9.
Cmnd 1261 (1961), Report of the Malta Constitutional Commission p. 6.
H.C. Deb. 5th Series, vol. 636, cols 471–7.
Malta Commission report pp. 3–4.
For this plan, F. Crouzet, Le conflit de Chypre 2 vols (Brussels, 1973) vol. 2, pp. 1036 ff.
Crouzet, Chypre vol. 2, p. 1111.
Ibid. vol. 2, p. 1109.
Ibid. vol. 2, p. 1073.
Ibid. vol. 2, pp. 1107, 1196.
Macmillan, Riding the storm, pp. 692, 695.
Cmnd. 1252 (1961), Treaty concerning the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, Article 1 and annexes B-F.
P. G. Polyviou, Cyprus: conflict and negotiation 1960–1980 (London, 1980) pp. 13–17.
Darby, British defence policy, pp. 125, 133, 209–10.
21,000 voters in a population of 140,000.
F. Halliday, Arabia without sultans (Harmondsworth, 1974) pp. 186–7.
G. King, Imperial outpost — Aden (London, 1964) pp. 10 ff.
Cmd. 9777 (1956), Singapore Constitutional Conference 1956; Cmnd. 147 (1957), Report of the Singapore Constitutional Conference, March–April 1957.
D. C. Watt (ed.), Survey of international affairs 1963 (London, 1977) p. 120.
B. Simandjuntak, Malayan federalism 1945–63 (Kuala Lumpur and London, 1969) p. 133.
Ibid., pp. 125, 128–9.
Cmnd. 1563 (1961), Federation of Malaysia: joint statement by Governments of the United Kingdom and the Federation of Malaya.
Cmnd. 1794 (1962), Report of the Commission of Enquiry, North Borneo and Sarawak (Cobbold Report) pp. 30, 42.
Cmnd. 124 (1957), Defence: outline of future policy p. 1.
Darby, British defence policy, p. 154.
Ibid., pp. 155–6.
Manpower was more than halved between 1956 and 1966. Ibid., p. 328
Ibid., p. 192.
Ibid., p. 218.
Ibid., p. 276.
Ibid., p. 283.
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© 1988 John Darwin
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Darwin, J. (1988). Winds of Change. In: Britain and Decolonisation. The Making of the 20th Century. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19547-3_6
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