Abstract
Churchill’s post-war recollection of the experience of the British Empire for the first half of 1942 was succinct enough: ‘all went ill’.2 Although the latter half of the year was to see some Allied successes, such as Operation Torch and El Alamein, Churchill nonetheless thought it necessary to reanimate his pre-war image as an ‘unreconstructed imperialist’.3 Consequently he declared that he had ‘not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’, and drew a line under the loss of Hong Kong, the fall of Singapore, and the invasions of Malaya and Burma.4 In doing so, Churchill emphasised that the British Empire in the Far East was only temporarily unhinged and that the Empire would hold its own.5 He was adamant that the war would not extinguish the British Empire — once the Japanese were defeated, the British imperial lion would not roll over and be squeezed between the American eagle and Russian bear.6 By late 1942, therefore, Churchill obviously thought it necessary to remind the subjects, enemies and allies of the British Empire that it was still a force to be reckoned with. Yet, when it came to his memoirs, why was Churchill’s most defiant and oft-quoted imperial declaration absent?
The loss of India would mark and consummate the downfall of the British Empire. That great organism would pass at a stroke out of life into history. From such a catastrophe there could be no recovery.1
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Notes
Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War: Volume IV, The Hinge of Fate (London: Cassell, 1951), p. ix.
Nicholas Owen, ‘The Cripps mission of 1942: A reinterpretation’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 30/1 (2002), p. 62.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches: Volume VI, 1935–1942 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), Churchill, Mansion House speech, London, 10 November 1942, p. 6695.
James (ed.), Complete Speeches, VI, Churchill, Mansion House speech, London, 10 November 1942, p. 6695.
John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries: Volume II, October 1941–April 1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985; Sceptre edition, 1987), 24 February 1945, p. 204. Churchill’s analogy sometimes changed to a British donkey squeezed between an American elephant (or an American Buffalo) and a Russian bear.
Hyam, ‘Churchill and the British Empire’, in Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), Churchill: A Major New Assessment of his Life in Peace and War (Oxford: OUP, 1993), p. 167.
The most notable of the most recently-published works on the British Empire, its rise and decline, are: John Darwin, The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge: CUP, 2009); After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400–2000 (London: Penguin, 2008); Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Penguin, 2007); Richard Gott, Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (London: Verso, 2011); Jonathan Hart, Empires and Colonies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008); Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation 1918–1968 (Cambridge: CUP, 2006); Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Ashley Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London: Hambledon, 2006); Kwasi Kwarteng, Ghosts of Empire: Britain’s Legacies in the Modern World (London: Bloomsbury, 2011); Philippa Levine, The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2007); Jeremy Paxman, Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British (London: Viking, 2011); Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society and Culture in Britain (Oxford: OUP, 2004); The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850–2004 (4th edition, Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004); Kathryn Tidrick, Empire and the English Character: The Illusion of Authority (London: Taurus Parke, 2009); and Stanley Wolpert, Shameful Flight: The Last Years of the British Empire in India (Oxford: OUP, 2006).
The exceptions to this rule are Raymond Callahan, Churchill: Retreat from Empire (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1984); Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: The Demise of a Superpower, 1944–1947 (London: Penguin, 2008); Kirk Emmert, Winston S. Churchill on Empire (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1989); Ronald Hyam, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial Office, 1905–1908: The Watershed of the Empire Commonwealth (London: Macmillan, 1968); Lawrence James, Churchill and Empire: Portrait of an Imperialist (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013); and Richard Toye, Churchill’s Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (London: Macmillan, 2010).
Mark F. Proudman, ‘Words for Scholars: The Semantics of ‘Imperialism’, Journal of the Historical Society, 8/3 (2008), p. 395.
William Keith Hancock, Wealth of Colonies (Cambridge: CUP, 1950), p. 17. See the following for concise overviews at attempts at definition: P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas II: New Imperialism, 1850–1945’, Economic History Review, 40/1 (1987); and British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (2nd edition, Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2002); D.K. Fieldhouse, ‘“Imperialism”: An Historiographical Revision’, Economic History Review, 14/2 (1961); John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review, 6/1 (1953); Rosalind O’Hanlon, ‘Gender in the British Empire’, in Judith Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: OUP, 1999), pp. 379–97;John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (New York: Cosimo, 2005 [1902]); Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990); Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 2004 [1939]); Philippa Levine (ed.), Gender and Empire (Oxford: OUP, 2004); Annie McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995); Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage Books, 1994); Helmut D. Schmidt and Richard Koebner, Imperialism: The Story and Significance of a Political Word, 1840–1960 (Cambridge: CUP, 1964); and Angela Woollacott, Gender and Empire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940–1965 (London: Constable, 1966), p. 228.
The term ‘Victorian’ has acquired various connotations and inflections. Most obviously, it refers to the period when Queen Victoria (1819–1901) ruled Britain from 1837 until her death. The term can be used to imply that someone has an outlook, a mentality or viewpoint, which is restricted, old-fashioned and out of date. When used in this way it is generally used as a term of derision, of abuse. However if someone describes themselves as Victorian, the term denotes a person of strong morals and strict beliefs; it takes on a more positive connotation. In Churchill’s case he has often been described as essentially the subaltern of the Victorian era, most notably when his attitude towards India is being examined, and especially when his attitude towards race and empire are compared to any of his more enlightened contemporaries, such as Leo Amery. In the 1930s, when Churchill was in his (arguably self-imposed) political wilderness, he willingly described himself as ‘Victorian’ as it bolstered the imperial image which he was fostering. For the schoolboy verse, see Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (London: Heinemann, 1991), p. 26.
Randolph S. Churchill (ed.), Into Battle: Speeches by the Right Hon. Winston S. Churchill P.C., M.P. (London: Cassell, 1941), Speech to the House of Commons, 13 May, 1940, p. 208.
Roland Quinault, ‘Lord Randolph Henry Spencer Churchill (1849–1895)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, September 2004; online edition May 2009).
J. M. Brereton, ‘The Panjdeh Crisis, 1885: Russians and British in Central Asia’, History Today, 29/1 (1979), pp. 46–52.
Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1930), pp. 1–48; Winston S. Churchill, Lord Randolph Churchill: Volumes I–II (London: Macmillan, 1906).
See Robert F. Foster, Lord Randolph Churchill: A Political Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); and Robert Rhodes James, Lord Randolph Churchill (London: Phoenix, 1994).
A sentiment reiterated by Lord Curzon (Viceroy of India, 1898–1905) when he stated in 1901 that ‘As long as we rule in India, we are the greatest power in the world. If we lose it we shall drop straight away to a third rate power’. Cited by Wm. Roger Louis, ‘Introduction’, in Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV, The Twentieth Century (Oxford: OUP, 1999;edition, 2001), p. 5.
Martin Gilbert (ed.), Winston S. Churchill, Companion Volume V, Part II: Documents, The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), Churchill to Randolph Churchill, 8 January 1931, p. 243. As cited by John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory, A Political Biography (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1993), p. 257.
Michael Bentley, Lord Salisbury’s World: Conservative Environments in Late Victorian Britain (Cambridge: CUP, 2001), especially ‘The Empire’, pp. 220–50. Bentley’s compelling biography of Salisbury highlights the similarity between Salisbury and the young Winston to such an extent that the reader has to constantly remind themselves that Salisbury and not Churchill is the subject.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, Volume I: 1897–1908 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), Churchill election address, Oldham, 26 June 1899, p. 34.
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume V: Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (London: Heinemann, 1976; Minerva edition, 1990) p. 390.
See Shula Marks, ‘Smuts, Jan Christiaan (1870–1950)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, 2004; online edition, January 2011) for a brief yet comprehensive summation of Smuts’s considerable achievements. Also see Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin, ‘The myth of the “Magnanimous Gesture”: the Liberal government, Smuts and conciliation, 1906’ in their Reappraisals in British Imperial History (London: Macmillan, 1975), pp. 167–86, which convincingly argues that Smuts, like Churchill, was not adverse to creating his own stature by exaggerating his influence and achievements.
Nigel Nicolson (ed.), The Harold Nicolson Diaries: 1907–1963 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004), 4 June 1946, p. 337.
Wm. Roger Louis, In the Name of God Go! Leo Amery and the British Empire in the Age of Churchill (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 20.
Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking People: Volume IV, The Great Democracies (London: Cassell, 1958), p. 292.
See Paul Addison, ‘Churchill and Social Reform’, in Blake and Louis (eds), Churchill, pp. 57–78; and Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness (London: Macmillan, 2007).
Randolph S. Churchill (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume II, Part 2, 1901–1907 (London: Heinemann, 1969), Fisher to Churchill, 28 February 1909, p. 956.
See: Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: the Royal Navy in the Fisher era, 1904–1919 (London: OUP, 1961–70) 5 volumes; Barry M. Gough, ‘The Royal Navy and the British Empire’, in Robin N. Winks (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume V, Historiography (Oxford: OUP, 1999; edition, 2001), pp. 327–41; and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Fontana Press, 1991).
This is an area of Churchill’s career that is comparatively under-researched. Portrayals range from a sabre-rattling and punitive Home Secretary, to one who believed in justice for all (especially the weak and vulnerable, whether in Britain, India or the Transvaal). See Victor Bailey, ‘Churchill as Home Secretary: Reforming the Prison Service’, History Today, 35:3 (1985), pp. 10–13; Richard Devine, ‘Top Cop in a Top Hat: Churchill as Home Secretary, 1910–1911’, in Finest Hour, 143 (2009), pp. 20–24;Robert Rhodes James, Churchill: A Study in Failure, 1900–1939 (London: Penguin, 1973); and Norman Rose, Churchill: An Unruly Life (London: Touchstone Books, 1998).
Mary Soames (ed.), Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill (London: Black Swan, 1999), Churchill to Clementine, 26 June 1911, p. 49.
Having crossed the floor of the Commons from the Conservative to the Liberal benches on 31 May 1904, and having then crossed back and officially rejoined the Conservatives in 1925, Churchill allegedly said that ‘anyone can “rat”, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to “re-rat”’. But as with quite a few of Churchill’s quotes, verification is elusive. If Richard M. Langworth OBE (President of the Churchill Centre in Washington, D.C. from 1988–99, editor of the Churchill Society’s journal Finest Hour), a man who has been described as having an encyclopaedic knowledge of Churchill’s published words, cannot verify that this is genuine Churchill, then it must be left unattributed. Richard M. Langworth (ed.), Churchill’s Wit: The Definitive Collection (London: Ebury, 2009), p. 75.
See Michael Dockrill, ‘British policy during the Agadir crisis of 1911’, in Francis Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge: CUP, 1977).
The phrase ‘weary Titan’ was coined by Matthew Arnold (1822–88), the poet, cultural commentator and school inspector, in his poem Heine’s Grave published in 1867. Arnold’s description of the British Empire, as weary under the immense Atlantean load of the too vast orb of her fate, was later reiterated, in 1902, by Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914), the industrialist and politician, when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies, in his opening speech to the Colonial Conference: ‘The Colonial Conference, Mr Chamberlain’s Opening Speech’, The Times, 4 November 1902. For a detailed analysis of imperial weariness see Aaron L. Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Also see Darwin, The Empire Project, in which he stresses that Edwardian fears were rather more about imperial overstretch, as opposed to fears of an imminent imperial collapse.
James (ed.), Complete Speeches, I, Churchill election address, Oldham, 27 June 1899, p. 41.
It should be noted that the War Council recommended that the Dardanelles be a naval enterprise, and that they should ‘bombard and take the Gallipoli Peninsula, with Constantinople as its objective’ which Churchill (as First Sea Lord) accepted. See Marder From Dardanelles to Oran, p. 2. See Amanda Capern, ‘Winston Churchill, Mark Sykes and the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915’, Historical Research, 71 (1998); Tim Coates (ed.), Lord Kitchener and Winston Churchill: The Dardanelles Commission, Part I, 1914–1915 (London: HMSO, 1917; Stationery Office edition, 2000); and Defeat at Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Commission, Part II, 1915–1916 (London: HMSO, 1918; Stationery Office edition, 2000).
Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Volume II: Young Statesman, 1901–1914 (London: Heinemann, 1967), p. 50. The Dardanelles campaign was arguably the lowest point in Churchill’s political career. Although the ensuing enquiry cleared him of wrongdoing, political mud sticks. The consequences for Churchill, when he became wartime prime minister, were his encounters with the understandably sour taste the disaster at Gallipoli left in Australian and New Zealand mouths.
For details on the conditions experienced by the Indian troops see: Gordon Corrigan, Sepoys in the Trenches: The Indian Corps on the Western Front, 1914–1915 (Stroud: Spellmount, 2006); and David E. Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War; Soldiers’ Letters, 1914–18 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), pp. 23–131.
See Judith M. Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Oxford, OUP, 1985), pp. 188–202; David Low (ed.), Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1917–1947 (2nd edition, New Delhi; OUP, 2004), pp. 1–46;Budheswar Pati, India and the First World War 1914–1918 (New Delhi: Atlantic, 1996), pp. 136–241;and Sir Algernon Rumbold, Watershed in India, 1914–1922 (London: Athlone Press, 1979), pp. 1–126.
See Tim Coates (ed.), The Amritsar Massacre: General Dyer in the Punjab, 1919 (London: HMSO, 1920; Stationery Office edition, 2000); Nigel Collett, The Butcher of Amritsar: General Reginald Dyer (2nd edition, London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007); V.N. Datta and S. Settar (eds), Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (New Delhi: Pragati, 2000); Nick Lloyd, The Amritsar Massacre: The Untold Story of one Fateful Day (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011); and Derek Sayer, ‘British reaction to the Amritsar Massacre, 1919–1920’, Past and Present, 131 (1991).
See Kevin Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire, 1918–1922 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), pp. 96–154.
Churchill was not the only Cabinet member, or MP, to acknowledge the Bolshevik threat to the British Empire, but his was the loudest and most constant of the anti-Bolshevik voices. Martin Gilbert (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume IV, Part 2, July 1919–March 1921 (London: Heinemann, 1977), Lord Derby to Churchill, 17 Dec December. 1920, ‘I want to tell you how absolutely I agree with the line you are taking about the Bolsheviks’, p. 1270.
One example of Churchill’s immersion in imperial matters was his role in the abolition of the mui tsai system, the ‘practice of taking small girls to work as domestic servants’, which was a centuries-old endemic practice in China. See Norman Miners, Hong Kong under Imperial Rule, 1912–1941 (Hong Kong: OUP, 1987), p. 153.
See Kristian Ulrichsen, ‘The British Occupation of Mesopotamia, 1914–1922’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 30:2 (2007); Edwin Latter, ‘The Indian army in Mesopotamia, 1914–1918’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 72 (1994); Mason, A Matter of Honour; and Lord Hardinge, My Indian Years, 1910–1916: The Reminiscences of Lord Hardinge of Penhurst (London: Murray, 1948).
See Christopher Catherwood, Churchill’s Folly: How Winston Churchill created modern Iraq (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2004); Aaron S. Klieman, Foundation of British Policy in the Arab World: The Cairo Conference of 1921 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970); Ritchie Ovendale, ‘Churchill and the Middle East 1945–55’, in R.A.C. Parker (ed.), Winston Churchill: Studies in Statesmanship (London: Brassey’s, 1995); and Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq: Contriving Kingand Country (London: Tauris, 2007).
Winston S. Churchill, ‘Mesopotamia and the New Government’, The Empire Review, 38/270 (1923), p. 696.
Policing troublesome imperial territories was an idea that Churchill thought was suited to Ireland. In fact he advocated the use of aircraft against Sinn Fein in 1920 and suggested that air power be used to ‘scatter and stampede them’. See Peter W. Gray, ‘The Myths of Air Control and the realities of Imperial Policing’, The Royal Air Force: Air Power Review, 4/2 (2001), p. 42; and David E. Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force, 1919–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), pp. 40–42.
See Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control, especially chapter 6, ‘Indigenous responses to air policing’, pp. 107–33; and Philip Towle, Pilots and Rebels: The Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare, 1918–1988 (London: Brassey’s, 1989), pp.19–21.
See James S. Corum, ‘The RAF in imperial defence, 1919–1956’, in Greg Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence: The old world order 1856–1956 (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 152–75; and Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control, chapter 4, ‘The limits of air substitution’, pp. 60–83.
For full accounts of Churchill’s role in the Cairo Conference of March 1921 see: Catherwood, Churchill’s Folly; Klieman, Foundations of British Policy in the Arab World; and Walter Reid, Empire of Sand: How Britain Made the Middle East (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2011).
Martin Gilbert (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume IV, Part 3, April 1921–November 1922 (London: Heinemann, 1977), Churchill memorandum, 4 July 1921, p. 1540.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Memoirs of a Conservative: J.C.C. Davidson’s Memoirs and Papers, 1910–1937 (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 210, cited by Christopher M. Bell, ‘Winston Churchill and the Ten Year Rule’, Journal of Modern History, 74 (2010), p. 1106.
See Ryan Brown, ‘The Burden of Statesmanship: Churchill as Chancellor, 1924–1929’, Finest Hour, 153 (2011–12), pp. 12–20; and Peter Clarke, ‘Churchill’s Economic Ideas, 1900–1930’, in Blake and Louis (eds), Churchill, pp. 79–95.
See Brian McAllister Linn, Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); David MacGregor, ‘Former Naval Cheapskate: Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy, 1924–1929’, Armed Forces and Society, 19/3 (1993), pp. 319–33;James Neidpath, The Singapore Naval Base and the Defence of Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1919–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy (eds), Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman (London: Routledge, 1997); Keith Neilson, ‘Unbroken Thread’: Japan, Maritime Power and British Imperial Defence, 1920–32’, in Greg Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 (Abingdon: Cass, 2005); George Peden, ‘The Treasury and defence of empire, in Kennedy (ed.), Imperial Defence (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 71–90;and Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars: Volume I, The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism, 1919–1929 (London: Collins, 1968). The ‘Ten Year Rule’ rolling defence spending limit is sometimes attributed to Churchill alone, whereas this is not the case. The rule (where war was not envisaged for another ten years hence no need to rearm frantically) was signed in 1919 by all of the Cabinet and was automatically renewed every year. The rule was, at times, blamed for Britain’s lack of preparedness for war. See Bell, ‘Winston Churchill and the Ten Year Rule’; K. Booth, ‘The Ten Year Rule—An Unfinished Debate’, Royal United Services Institute Journal, 116 (1971), pp. 58–62; Stephen Roskill, ‘The Ten Year Rule—The Historical Facts, Royal United Services Institute Journal, 117 (1972), pp. 69–71;and Peter Silverman, ‘The Ten Year Rule’, Royal United Services Institute Journal, 116 (1971), pp. 42–5.
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (London: Heinemann, 1976; Minerva, 1990), Churchill to Baldwin, 13 January 1924, p. 76; and Gilbert (ed.), Companion Volume IV: 3, Churchill memorandum, 4 July 1921, p. 1541.
Raymond Callahan, ‘Churchill and Singapore, in Brian Farrell and Sandy Hunter (eds), Sixty Years On: The Fall of Singapore Revisited (Singapore: Eastern University Press, 2002), p. 157.
See Christopher Bell, ‘The “Singapore strategy” and the deterrence of Japan: Winston Churchill, the Admiralty and the dispatch of Force Z’, English Historical Review, 116/467 (2001), pp. 604–34; Raymond Callahan, ‘The Illusion of Security: Singapore 1919–1942’, Journal of Contemporary History,9/2 (1979), pp. 69–92; Ian Cowman, ‘An Admiralty Myth: The Search for an Advanced Far Eastern Fleet Base before the Second World War, Journal of Strategic Studies, 8 (1985), pp. 316–26;Ian Hamill, ‘Winston Churchill and the Singapore Naval Base, 1924–1929’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 11/2 (1980), pp. 277–86.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.) Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, Volume V: 1928–1935 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), Churchill, Mansion House, London, 19 July 1928, p. 4496.
James (ed.) Complete Speeches, V, Churchill, Mansion House, London, 19 July, 1928, p. 4497.
Randolph S. Churchill (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume I, Part 2, 1896–1900 (London: Heinemann, 1967), Lady Jennie Churchill to Churchill, 29 October 1897, p. 826.
Penderel Moon (ed.), Wavell: The Viceroy’s Journal (Karachi: OUP, 1974), p. 3.
Churchill, Daily Mail, 16 November 1929;cited by Ian St John, ‘Writing to the Defence of Empire: Winston Churchill’s Press Campaign against Constitutional Reform in India, 1929–1935’, in Chandrika Kaul (ed.), Media and the British Empire (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 104; Churchill, Gathering Storm, p. 27.
Toye citing John Barnes, and David Nicolson (eds), The Empire At Bay: The Leo Amery Diaries 1929–1945 (London: Hutchinson, 1988), Leo Amery diary entry, 19 July 1934, p. 384, in Toye, Churchill’s Empire, p. 180.
Paul Addison, ‘The Three Careers of Winston Churchill’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth series, 11 (2001), p. 186.
Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples: Volumes I–IV (London: Cassell, 1956–8). Although research was started in 1933, the rate of work naturally dimmed as Churchill pursued the advent of German rearmament. The outbreak of war, his return to the Admiralty, paper shortages and then becoming Prime Minister, all led to Churchill abandoning the work and then resuming it in the in the mid 1950s once he had retired from his second residency of 10 Downing Street. See Peter Clarke, Mr Churchill’s Profession: The Statesman as Author and the Book That Defined the ‘Special Relationship’ (London: Bloomsbury, 2012).
Richard Toye, ‘Churchill and Empire: Myth and Reality’, part of the Churchill Lecture Series, Cabinet War Rooms, London, 22 March 2011.
Randolph S. Churchill (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume II, Part 3, 1911–1914 (London: Heinemann, 1969), Churchill memorandum, c. early 1912, p. 1512.
David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 336.
John Gallagher, ‘The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire’, in Anil Seal (ed.), The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire: The Ford Lectures and other essays by John Gallagher (Cambridge: CUP, 1982; 2nd edition, 2004), p. 73.
Robert Rhodes James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1987–1963, Volume VII, 1943–1949 (New York: Chelsea House, 1974), Churchill, ‘The Sinews of Peace’, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, 5 March 1946, p. 7292.
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Wilson, C. (2014). Churchill’s British Empire. In: Churchill on the Far East in The Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137363954_3
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