The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

761 Pages·1997·4.77 MB·English

by  Lawrence James

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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
List of Maps
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One: Excellent Opportunities: 1600–89
1. My New-Found-Land: North America
2. Baubles for the Souls of Men: The West and East Indies
3. The Necessary Union of Plantations: Crown and Colonies
4. Dispositions of Providence: The Colonists
Part Two: Persist and Conquer: 1689–1815
1. Rule of the Main: The Making of British Seapower, 1689–1748
2. ’Tis to Glory we Steer: Gains and Losses, 1749–83
3. The Empire of America: Settlement and War, 1689–1775
4. The Descendants of Britons: North America Rebels, 1765–75
5. The World Turned Upside Down: The American War of Independence, 1775–
83
6. The Terror of Our Arms: Conquest and Trade in India, 1689–1815
7. The Desert of Waters: The Pacific and Australasia
8. Wealth and Victory: The Struggle against France, 1793–1815
Part Three: Wider Still and Wider, 1815–1914
1. Power and Greatness: Commerce, Seapower and Strategy, 1815–70
2. We are Going as Civilisers: Empire and Public Opinion, 1815–80
3. The Mission of Our Race: Britain and the ‘New Imperialism’, 1880–1902
4. The Miracle of the World: India, 1815–1905
5. They Little Know Our Strength: The Far East and the Pacific
6. A Great English-Speaking Country: South Africa
7. That Heroic Soul: The Struggle for the Nile
8. The Greatest Blessing that Africa has Known: East and West Africa
9. Ye Sons of the Southern Cross: The White Dominions
10. Be Brave, Be Bold, Do Right!: The Edwardian Empire and the People
11. To Join the Khaki Line: The Empire and the Coming of War
Part Four: The Age of Imperialism is Ended: 1914–45
1. E is for Empire for which We Would Die: 1914–18
2. Clear Out or Govern: Troubles, mainly Irish, 1919–39
3. Their Country’s Dignity: Egypt 1919–42
4. The Haughty Governess: The Middle East, 1919–42
5. A New Force and New Power: India, 1919–42
6. For the Benefit of Everyone: Concepts of Empire, 1919–39
7. The Bond of One Spirit: The Public Face of Empire, 1919–39
8. No Good Blustering: The Limits of Imperial Power, 1919–36
9. We Shall Come to No Good: The Empire goes to War, 1937–9
10. Finest Hour: The Empire at War, 1939–41
11. Steadfast Comrades: The Stresses of War
12. The Defence of Archaic Privilege: The Empire Restored, 1942–5
Part Five: The Setting Sun, 1945–93
1. The Colonialists are on the Rampage: The Empire in the Post-war World
2. Friendly Relations: India and the Liquidation of Empire, 1945–7
3. The World as It Is: Middle Eastern Misadventures, 1945–56
4. Kick Their Backsides: The Suez War and Beyond
5. The Old Red, White and Blue: Reactions to a Dying Empire
6. Uhuru: Tying up Loose Ends, 1959–80
7. Unfinished Business
Bibliography
Notes
Index
By the same author
Copyright
To the memory of Vivian and Tim Williams
Maps
1 Seventeenth-Century Settlement in North America
2 The Caribbean and West Indies in the Eighteenth Century
3 The British Empire, 1713
4 North America, 1755–75
5 American War of Independence, 1776–83
6 Eighteenth-Century India
7 The British Empire, 1850
8 Nineteenth-Century India
9 China, 1839–1900
10 Nineteenth-Century Malaya
11 Southern Africa, 1815–1902
12 The Nile Valley, 1882–98
13 East Africa in the Nineteenth Century
14 West Africa in the Nineteenth Century
15 Africa Partitioned, 1914
16 The British Empire, 1914
17 The British Empire and Mandates, c. 1930
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank my wife, Mary, for her encouragement, patience and
goodwill during the preparation and writing of this book. Thanks are also due to
my sons, Edward and Henry, who rendered much valuable assistance. Help,
suggestions and valuable advice were also provided by John Adamson, Dr Ian
Bradley, Major Euan Campbell, Professor Fred Crawford, John Dishman, Dr
Martin Edmonds, David Elder, Dr Nancy Follett, Professor Ray Furness, R.S.M.
Joe Mahady, John Hailwood, Michael Halsey, Michael and Veronica Hodges,
Mark Hunter, Linda Silverman (who provided most of the illustrations), Andrew
Lownie, Dr John Mackenzie, Sheila Mcllwraith, Professor Souleiman Moussa,
Professor Alan Paterson, Liz Pert-Davies, Professor Jeffrey Richards, Dr and
Mrs Nick Roe, Alan Samson, Alex Sinclair, Dr Martin Stephen, Brian and Kate
Waldy, Andrew Williams, the late Vivian Williams, Andrew Wille, and Oswald
and Jan Wynd. I am also indebted to Mrs Gascoigne and all the staff at the
University of St Andrews Library for services far beyond the call of duty. I
would also like to thank the staff at the National Library of Scotland, the
Scottish Record Office, the Public Record Office, the Imperial War Museum (in
particular the photographic department) and the National Army Museum for
their forbearance and help.
Quotations from Crown Copyright records appear by permission of the
Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Introduction
Some time early in the 1980s I undertook a brief tour of what had once been the
commercial powerhouse of the British empire. By then, that complex of wharves
and solid brick warehouses which stood along the north shore of the Thames was
derelict. Nonetheless, the overall effect was impressive, and the cast-iron street
signs (Jamaica Street, Ceylon Street) advertised the sources of past prosperity.
The abandoned docks of London and Liverpool and Bristol are among the
grander monuments to Britain’s moment of empire and world power.
There are others: the shells of Lancashire cotton mills which spun yarns for
India; the shipyards of the Clyde and the Tyne which built steamers to carry
Britain’s trade and the men-o’-war which protected it; and the country houses of
the merchants and nabobs-turned-country-squires who raked in the profits. One
of the latter, Sir Charles Cockerell, having made a fortune in India at the end of
the eighteenth century, had his mansion, Sezincote, built in a style which
combines the novelties of the Prince Regent’s Brighton Pavilion with Indian
motifs, including a dome of the sort which would have been set over a mosque.
The Cotswold landscape around the house is enhanced with ornamental gardens
with an Indian shrine and a bridge decorated with Brahmin bulls. Bringing India
to Gloucestershire was a nice reminder that imperialism was a two-way process.
Human memorials of the empire are abundant. David Livingstone, one hand
resting on his revolver and the other clasping a Bible, overlooks Prince’s Street,
Edinburgh. Walk up towards the castle and one is confronted by embattled, and,
thanks to weathering, gaunt stone Highlanders, who form their countrymen’s
monument to the Boer War. Churches and cathedrals are draped with dusty,
threadbare regimental ensigns embroidered with exotic names such as
‘Chillianwala’ and ‘Tel-el-Kebir’, and the men who died in these and other
battles are often commemorated nearby in marble and brass. Pub signs celebrate
imperial heroes, and street names conquests and conquerors. In the northern
suburbs of Southampton I once saw a Khartoum Road and an Omdurman Road,
and in the small West Riding town of Crosshills, a Rhodesia Road. All, to judge