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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 81
... five hundred million of us . ' In Britain the war is primarily remembered as a European struggle , an under- standable perspective born of geography and the close proximity of would - be invaders . This is not to say that some of the ...
... five decades as a parliamentarian , soldier , jour- nalist , historian and Cabinet Minister contributed to his emergence as the greatest imperial statesman of his age , breathing imperial rhetoric as second nature ; no speech - writers ...
... Five immediate imperial rami- fications of the fall of France were the loss of French naval power in the western Mediterranean ; the establishment of U - boat bases on the Atlantic coast that greatly enhanced Germany's ability to make ...
... ( five having been lost during the war , but five having been launched ) , seven fleet carriers , four light fleet carriers , forty - one escort carriers , sixty - two cruisers , 131 submarines , 846 destroyers , frigates and sloops ( of ...
... the people of the British Empire and Commonwealth , all five hundred million of them , had played a central part in achieving it . 4 The Home Front On 23 December 1941 eighty Japanese 40 THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR.
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 |