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
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... Mediterranean . As in the air , so too at sea . Imperial ports and naval shore bases provided a global network for the warships of the fleets and squadrons that had historically policed the world , from the South Atlantic Station to the ...
... Mediterranean and East Africa into the front line ; and the rise of Japan brought the war suddenly to the doorstep of Ceylon and engulfed Malaya and the great ' fortress ' of Singapore , in which so many hollow inter - war security ...
... Mediterranean and Middle East , at least in terms of the size of its territorial holdings , once it had been able to appropriate British and French territories . Japan's resource - rich eastern empire would stretch from northern China ...
... Mediterranean , a strategic luxury that the British were not permitted in 1941 . Whilst naval disarmament saw the size of warships limited and their numbers cut , the RAF was by the 1930s being prioritized by politicians increasingly ...
... Mediterranean region by over two years . So there was no chance of Japan being met by a sizeable force built around battleships and carriers trans- ferred from the Mediterranean Fleet . A second element of bad luck was that Britain ...
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 |