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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... rule ( absent since General Gordon was cut down by the Mahdi at Khartoum in 1885 ) . Special efforts were needed to keep Sudan's intelligentsia on Britain's side.24 As in every other part of the Empire , British rule depended upon a ...
... rule newly - conquered territories through groups that the defeated imperial power had sought to suppress . In May 1942 Thakin Tun Oke , a dissident trained by the Japanese , had been appointed head of a central government , but he was ...
... rule . So too did the fact , upon which empire - building and rule had been fundamentally based , that Empire required the mass of people in Britain , and in the other powerful states of the world too , to be supportive , disinterested ...