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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... , there were other categories . Newfoundland was a lapsed Dominion , under direct British rule at the time of the Second World War , but soon thereafter to become a province of the Dominion of Canada . The Sudan Note.
... rule . Different again , there were some territories , like Tonga , that were independent but in special treaty relations with Britain . The term ' informal empire ' is generally used by imperial historians to describe the parts of the ...
... rule was the King - Emperor George VI , an imperial monarch whose image was known throughout the world . Royal tours of the Empire and Commonwealth had been commonplace since the death of Queen Victoria , becoming part of the pageant of ...
... rules of international relations as those great democracies had framed them , and that sought so significantly to alter the map of the world . As Sir Halford Mackinder , a pioneer of geopolitics , predicted , a democracy ' refuses to ...
... input into imperial fighting theatres inevitably brought political and economic involvement in its wake that was rarely conducive to a post - war return to settled and solitary British rule 24 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 |