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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... significant ports around the world during the war , as it became - like Halifax , Freetown ( Sierra Leone ) , Gibraltar and Galle ( Ceylon ) – a convoy assembly point . It was a gathering place in the western Atlantic for merchant ships ...
... significant constitutional advance came more as a result of American pressure than pressure from Jamaican nation- alists . By the 1940s a political consciousness among middle - class Jamaicans was manifesting itself in political ...
... significant numbers of troops and items of equipment . ) With the best odds he was ever likely to get , Mussolini took the offensive in the summer of 1940. On 10 June Italian forces entered the Sudan and seized Gallabat , Karoro ...