The British Empire and the Second World WarIn 1939 Hitler went to war not just with Great Britain; he also went to war with the whole of the British Empire, the greatest empire that there had ever been. In the years since 1945 that empire has disappeared, and the crucial fact that the British Empire fought together as a whole during the war has been forgotten. All the parts of the empire joined the struggle and were involved in it from the beginning, undergoing huge changes and sometimes suffering great losses as a result. The war in the desert, the defence of Malta and the Malayan campaign, and the contribution of the empire as a whole in terms of supplies, communications and troops, all reflect the strategic importance of Britain's imperial status. Men and women not only from Australia, New Zealand and India but from many parts of Africa and the Middle East all played their part. Winston Churchill saw the war throughout in imperial terms. The British Empire and the Second World War emphasises a central fact about the Second World War that is often forgotten. |
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... Palestine and Trans - Jordan . Others , like Iraq , were officially independent nation states , though accommodating significant British military bases and by treaty obliged to allow British forces access and transit rights in times of ...
... Palestine , Rodrigues , Sierra Leone , the Seychelles , Swaziland , Tanganyika and Uganda . Further east , the war against Japan was not just an American conflict , despite Hollywood's colonization of that particular theatre . The ...
... Palestine and Singapore . Scorched earth policies brought destruction to numerous imperial territories as Allied forces retreated , blowing up bridges and firing oil wells , as did fighting later in the war when Allied forces advanced ...
... Palestine and Muslims in India , were also supportive of the war effort for their own political reasons . In Malaya the Chinese community had good reason to side with the British against the Japanese ; educated West Africans hoped that ...
... Palestine . It might have been the Boer War . The Indian Army of about 200,000 men only began serious modernization in the 1930s , and in 1937 over 50,000 men were still committed to the North - West Frontier . Its role was Indian ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
21 | |
41 | |
5 The Atlantic | 53 |
6 The Caribbean | 77 |
7 The Mediterranean | 97 |
8 Iraq Iran and Syria | 145 |
11 The Islands of the Indian Ocean | 307 |
12 India and Burma | 351 |
13 SouthEast Asia and the Far East | 405 |
14 Australia and New Zealand | 463 |
15 The Pacific | 513 |
16 Epilogue | 525 |
Notes | 535 |
Bibliography | 561 |