Re: WW2 and the disintegration of British empire

"Stephen Graham" <graham1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

Much of the Indian Army, even at the height of World War Two, was
assigned to Internal Security duties, which is policing. Those forces on
the Northwest Frontier were engaged in something between especially
vigorous policing and outright warfare, depending on events.

The same was true of British and colonial forces in most of the colonies.

It appears simply not true that "in most of the colonies" the
"British and colonial forces" were busy with either internal
security (policing) or frontier campaigning as on the NW Frontier.

1. The Indian Army was unique, in being an ancient foundation,
organized by tribe or religion, for centuries a long-term career for
certain Indian castes (e.g. Mahrattas) or races (Nepali Gurkhas)
and administratively separate from the British Army. (Its top
officer was the Viceroy. His No. 2 was the general commanding
the British Army in India.) None of the other (tiny) colonial army
units (e.g. King's African Riflles, Jamaica Regt.) was anything
like this: e.g. none was a lifetime career for any ranker.

1b. The NW Frontier was a unique case, since no international
border existed between NW India and Afghanistan -- only the
"frontier provinces" like Waziristan where over nearly a century
there was a modus vivendi between Indian government and
Afghan government authorities, neither of which had any
effective control over local tribes with their own traditions . . .
That was why (as documented superbly in John Masters's
memoir Bugles and a Tiger) the Indian Army campaigned
on the NW Frontier every summer, rotating many different
units through such duty to give them practiical experience.
There was no such need in any other colony.

Egypt was never in the empire - just ruled by the UK. Iraq, Jordan,
Palestine were all ruled by the UK (and many created by the UK), however
none of these were in the empire either.

All of them were invited to join the Commonwealth and declined.

I do not believe Egypt was ever invited to join the Commonwealth.
It had its own king up to the early 1950s, when he was overthrown
by a nationalist republican coup. Similarly Midde East League of
Nations mandates and their successor states (Iraq, Jordan, Israel)
never sought to join the Commowealth -- even if their crown princes
went through the Royal Military Academy at Sandburst -- and
London never expected them to apply. Things were different for
the independent states of Africa and the Caribbean in the 1960s.

The British applied military force in many of their colonies on a
regular basis. The threat of it was always there, even if there was a
preference to avoid it if possible.

You might wish to learn a bit more about the workings of the Empire. You
might start off with something such as Byron Farwell's _Queen Victoria's
Little Wars_, which is a basic introduction to the military efforts

There were huge differences between Queen Victoria's wars and
those of the 20th century, the turning point being the Boer War
(when a small number of white colonials held off a huge
British expeditionary force for years.) Essential differences were
1. Telegraphs and later radio, so that London could control
field forces much more closely than in Wellington's day.
2. Institutionaliization of decolonization in British politics, as
Canada, Ireland etc. successfully asserted their independence,
establishing a model for constiitutional evolution explicitly
offfered 1926-1935 to India and Southern Rhodesia -- very
different but both pre-democratic and non-white societies.
3. Social feeling in Britain against overseas empires. "Little
Englanders" were eclipsed only in the heyday of late
Victorian society (say 1880-1900.) The catastrophes and
casualties of the Boer War restored anti-imperial feeling in
British society and Labour politics made it a formal policy.

All these forces hugely changed in the 20th century the
way British troops (and British officers) behaved overseas.
The only dependency with its own military tradition was
India, obviously a special case with special needs. E.g.
there were never race riots or religious pogroms on the
Indian scale in other colonies -- nor the patchwork of
nominally self-governing Indian states either. British
colonial rulers (e.g. district commissioners) usually
sought to act through tribal leaders, not least because
they had too few troops and too little financial authority
to act independently.

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)


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