How successfully did Britain deal with decolonisation and the Commonwealth?

Question 1

What problems did Britain face in its imperial policy?

Answer 1

The UN Charter required Britain to grant independence to its colonies, but Britain needed the economic resources of its colonies to assist its recovery after WW2

The non-white races of the world challenged white supremacy and anti-British colonial nationalism

The forces needed to suppress nationalism were costly and would generate material for the anti-colonial propaganda of the USSR and China

Question 2

What did British officials believe and what was feared?

Answer 2

The colonies couldn’t function as independent countries until they had developed their economies and built up their political, administrative, and judicial systems. Premature independence would make the colonies vulnerable to communist take-over

That colonies containing hostile racial and religious communities would descend into civil war

Question 3

Why did Britain wind up its empire?

Answer 3

Impact of WW2

Britain’s economic weakness

The growth of colonial nationalism

Impact of the Cold War

Question 4

What demonstrated that European rule wasn’t invincible?

Answer 4

The surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 and the collapse of the French and Dutch empires in the Far East

Question 5

What did colonial administrators try to do during the war and what was the impact?

Answer 5

Exploit the economic resources of the empire which disrupted many traditional, rural societies

Farmers in Kenya resented having to sell their crops to the government at a fixed price

Question 6

What did India see?

Answer 6

Unrest and an acceleration of British withdrawal

Question 7

What were the colonies unable to do and what did this encourage?

Answer 7

Buy manufactured goods from Britain and were prevented from buying them elsewhere

The rise of nationalist movements and discontent within the colonies

Question 8

What did the seriousness of British post-war economic weakness lead to?

Answer 8

It becoming government policy to exploit the resources of the colonies even more extensively than during the war

Question 9

What was set up in 1948 and what was the impact?

Answer 9

The Colonial Development Corporation and the East African Groundnut Scheme

Disrupted colonial communities, increased the resentment of those affected, and contributed to the growth of hostility to the British war

Question 10

What did economic weakness also mean?

Answer 10

Britain could no longer supply the colonies with the investment capital and manufactured goods they need

Question 11

What did the growth of resentment of British rule enable?

Answer 11

Charismatic, articulate, nationalist leaders to emerge who demanded immediate independence

Question 12

Where were their leaders educated and what were they encouraged by?

Answer 12

Usually, the West, where they studied democratic ideals as well as communist anti-colonial theories

The success of men such as Nasser in challenging British rule

Question 13

What happened in 1955?

Answer 13

Representatives from 25 newly independent countries with developing economies met in Indonesia to create the non-aligned movement and denounce European imperialism

Question 14

What happened in 1960?

Answer 14

Macmillan recognised the strength of anti-colonial nationalism when touring Africa and told the South African parliament that ‘the wind of change is blowing through this continent … this growth of national consciousness is a political fact’

Question 15

Where had this ‘wind of change’ already been seen?

Answer 15

In the Gold Coast (Ghana) where the Convention’s People Party had organised the campaign for independence

In Tanganyika, where the Tanganyika African National Union had insisted that the government of the country must be African

Question 16

However what was the case in some countries?

Answer 16

The resistance to colonialism was violent

By the end of 1952, there was a civil war in Kenya between those who had benefited from colonial rule and those who thought it should be resisted, resulting in over 14,000 individuals being killed and disturbances taking until 1956 to suppress

Question 17

What had America done in the late 1940s and early 1950s?

Answer 17

Encouraged Britain to keep their colonial empire, especially in Africa, because they believed that newly independent nations would be too weak to resist communist influence

Question 18

What did the US and the USSR produce and why?

Answer 18

Anti-colonial propaganda designed to win support in Africa and Asia

Britain struggled to control anti-colonial protests in places such as Egypt and Cyprus

Question 19

What became more important and why?

Answer 19

Winning the propaganda battle as the UN grew in size and increasingly became a forum for non-white nations to criticise European empires

Question 20

What did Britain hope?

Answer 20

That if they initiated political reform in their colonies they could turn them into independent nations that would remain within the Commonwealth and the sterling area

Question 21

What would this give?

Answer 21

Britain the benefits of empire without the costs, difficulties, and criticism, that came with efforts to suppress protest against British rule

Question 22

However what did they find themselves doing?

Answer 22

Handing power over to nationalist leaders they had previously imprisoned as terrorists, such as Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana or Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya

Question 23

What did the Conservatives attempt to do and why?

Answer 23

Unite adjacent territories into federations in a bid to make smaller and weaker colonies economically and politically stronger

Question 24

What happened in 1953, 1958, and 1963?

Answer 24

1953: The Central African Foundation was established

1958: A similar policy was adopted for the West Indies

1963: A similar policy for Britain’s collection of small territories and protectorates in the Arabian Peninsula

Question 25

What was the impact of the policy?

Answer 25

It wasn’t successful and all three federations were short-lived because they made the political divisions among their members worse

Question 26

Why was the CAF not successful?

Answer 26

The black African population, especially of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, saw it as the first step in their abandonment by Britain to permanent white minority rule

Question 27

By 1960 what convinced the government that the CAF had no future?

Answer 27

The strength of nationalist protest and unrest in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland

Question 28

What did Malayan territories provide?

Answer 28

An invaluable source of tin and rubber and a port of strategic importance

Question 29

What was the problem in Malay?

Answer 29

The colony was ethnically diverse: 45% Chinese, 40% Malay, and 15% Indian

Question 30

What happened in 1948 and what was the result?

Answer 30

Malayan Chinese communists had begun an insurrection against British rule, which lasted until 1960

Question 31

Why was the war successful?

Answer 31

It involved 40,000 British and Commonwealth troops

The Malay community was largely Muslim and disliked the atheist communism of the Chinese people

Question 32

What happened in August 1957?

Answer 32

Britain granted independence to a government headed by conservative Malay leaders

Question 33

What happened in 1948 in Ghana?

Answer 33

Britain had responded to riots in Accra by granting universal suffrage and creating an elected parliament, hoping to hand over power to Ghana’s conservative nationalists

Question 34

Instead, what did they have to deal with in Ghana?

Answer 34

The radical nationalist leader, Kwame Nkrumah, who won the elections held in 1951

Question 35

What did Nkrumah do?

Answer 35

Appeased Britain by agreeing to keep Ghana in both the Commonwealth and the sterling area and to accept a federal constitution, which devolved some power to the ethnically diverse central and northern regions of the country where he had little support

Question 36

When was Ghana granted independence and what did it appear to be?

Answer 36

March 1957

A model of ordered withdrawal because it had been achieved with a minimum of violence

Question 37

What made him controversial and what happened in 1966?

Answer 37

His socialist policies, his active support for black liberation elsewhere in Africa, and his authoritarian rule

He was overthrown by a military coup

Question 38

What was marked in Nigeria and why?

Answer 38

Regional differences

The north was Muslim, traditional and rural, whereas the south was Christian, more commercial, and westernised, but was also divided between two different ethnic groups - Igbo in the east and Yoruba in the west

Question 39

What did Britain impose and what did they do?

Answer 39

A federal constitution

Handed over power to a coalition representing the north and Igbo

Question 40

What happened in October 1960 but what was the consequence?

Answer 40

Nigeria became independent

Ethnic tensions caused instability and the country suffered a bitter and destructive civil war

Question 41

What was Kenya a rich source of?

Answer 41

Coffee and tea

Question 42

What was Kenyan society?

Answer 42

Divided between an Asian community which dominated the commercial life of the colony, white settlers who farmed the most productive land, and three indigenous black national groups - Kikuyu, Masai, and Luo

Question 43

What happened in 1952?

Answer 43

The Kikuyu people, resentful of their exclusion from the land farmed by the white settlers, began a guerrilla campaign known as the Mau Mau uprising

Question 44

What happened before Macmillan became PM but what did he realise in 1957?

Answer 44

The uprising was savagely suppressed by the British authorities

That the demand for independence was too strong to be resisted

Question 45

What happened in December 1963 and what was the problem?

Answer 45

Kenya became independent

Some of the country’s difficulties stemmed from the failure of the British colonial authorities to tackle the racial divisions and from the haste with which they withdrew

Question 46

What happened in April 1955?

Answer 46

The Greek Cypriot people began a terror campaign to expel the British authorities and unite the island with Greece and had tied down 25,000 British troops in a bitter and fruitless campaign

Question 47

What inflamed the uprising?

Answer 47

The cycle of terrorism and arbitrary British justice

Question 48

The cycle of terrorism and arbitrary British justice

Answer 48

The strategic importance of the island as a military base in the eastern Mediterranean
20% of the Cypriot population was Turkish and opposed to union with Greece

Question 49

What happened in 1960?

Answer 49

Macmillan succeeded in persuading the two communities to accept independence under a Greek president and Turkish vice president

Question 50

What led to the partition of the island?

Answer 50

Continued strife between the two communities and a Turkish invasion of the island

Question 51

What was the situation in Southern Rhodesia?

Answer 51

200k white people monopolised power over more than 3 million black people

Question 52

What happened in November 1965?

Answer 52

The white minority government unilaterally declared the colony independent of Britain

Question 53

Why could London not accept this?

Answer 53

Risked destroying the Commonwealth and facing the wrath of the United Nations, both dominated by newly independent non-white nations

Question 54

Why did this divide opinion in Britain?

Answer 54

The left wanted the Rhodesian regime crushed, by force if necessary

Right-wingers regarded the Rhodesian white population as ‘kith and kin’ and recalled that some had fought for Britain in WW2

Question 55

What did Wilson rule out and what did he hope?

Answer 55

The use of force

That British trade sanctions would strangle the Rhodesian economy

Question 56

What were the consequences of the sanctions?

Answer 56

Had little impact

Question 57

What risky decision did Wilson try to make and what was the outcome?

Answer 57

Settle with the Rhodesian leader, Ian Smith

His efforts failed because Smith would not agree to majority rule - if Smith had agreed to Wilson’s terms, it is possible that the Commonwealth would have broken up

Question 58

What happened in 1980 and why?

Answer 58

Rhodesia was granted independence

Pressure from South Africa and the USA rather than from British policy

Question 59

What did the Commonwealth become?

Answer 59

A diverse and multi-racial association;

The white-ruled nations retained important economic and strategic ties to Britain

India, Pakistan, and Ceylon established a precedent by joining as republics and recognising the British monarch as the head of the Commonwealth

Commonwealth troops fought alongside Britain and America during the Korean War

Question 60

How did the Commonwealth survive?

Answer 60

Mandela decided to rejoin the Commonwealth in 1994, suggesting that it remained a viable institution

In 1995 Mozambique and Cameroon joined with no historic ties to Britain

Question 61

What did the 1971 Singapore Declaration do and how was this enforced?

Answer 61

Condemned racial prejudice, and emphasised members’ commitment to democratic values, international peace, equal rights, and freedom of the individual

Nigeria’s membership was suspended between 1995 and 1999 for violating them