Imperial Defence

This collection of essays by leading scholars aims to define the main areas of
the British strategic decision-making process known as ‘Imperial Defence’.
The chapters are historiographical in nature, discussing the major features
of each key component of imperial defence, areas of agreement and dis-
agreement in the existing literature and introducing key individuals and
positions within the imperial defence system. The chapters will include out-
lines and commentary on the various systems of resource allocation,
information collection, analysis and dissemination, as well as on the final
product of that strategic policy-making process.
By providing a clear definition of imperial defence and a comprehensive
analysis of the way in which the constituent parts of that system have been
studied, this collection will serve as a useful guide for upper-level students,
as well as for contemporary policy makers.
This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies,
defence studies and international history.

Greg Kennedy is a Professor of Strategic Foreign Policy at the Defence

Studies Department, King’s College London, based at the Joint Services
Command and Staff College in Shrivenham. He is the author of several
books, including the award-winning monograph, Anglo-American Strategic
Relations and the Far East, 1933–1939 (Frank Cass, 2002).
Cass military studies

Intelligence Activities in Ancient Rome

Trust in the gods, but verify
Rose Mary Sheldon

Clausewitz and African War

Politics and strategy in Liberia and Somalia
Isabelle Duyvesteyn

Strategy and Politics in the Middle East, 1954–60

Defending the northern tier
Michael Cohen

The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965–1991

From Che Guevara to Cuito Cuanavale
Edward George

Military Leadership in the British Civil Wars, 1642–1651

‘The genius of this age’
Stanley Carpenter

Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 1953–1956

The dynamics of military retaliation
Ze’ev Drory

Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War

Leaders in war
Enver Redzic

West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War

Edited by Frederick Kagan and Christian Kubik

Khedive Ismail’s Army

John Dunn
Yugoslav Military Industry 1918–1991
Amadeo Watkins

Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918

The list regiment
John Williams

Rostóv in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920

The key to victory
Brian Murphy

The Tet Effect, Intelligence and the Public Perception of War

Jake Blood

The US Military Profession into the 21st Century

War, peace and politics
Edited by Sam C. Sarkesian and Robert E. Connor, Jr.

Civil-Military Relations in Europe

Learning from crisis and institutional change
Edited by Hans Born, Marina Caparini, Karl Haltiner and Jürgen Kuhlmann

Strategic Culture and Ways of War

Lawrence Sondhaus

Military Unionism in the Post Cold War Era

A future reality?
Edited by Richard Bartle and Lindy Heinecken

Warriors and Politicians

U.S. civil-military relations under stress
Charles A. Stevenson

Military Honour and the Conduct of Wa

From Ancient Greece to Iraq
Paul Robinson

Military Industry and Regional Defense Policy

India, Iraq and Israel
Timothy D. Hoyt

Managing Defence in a Democracy

Edited by Laura R. Cleary and Teri McConville

Gender and the Military

Women in the armed forces of western democracies
Helena Carreiras
Social Sciences and the Military
An interdisciplinary overview
Edited by Giuseppe Caforio

Cultural Diversity in the Armed Forces

An international comparison
Edited by Joseph Soeters and Jan van der Meulen

Railways and the Russo-Japanese War

Transporting war
Felix Patrikeeff and Harold Shukman

War and Media Operations

The US military and the press from Vietnam to Iraq
Thomas Rid

Ancient China on Postmodern War

Enduring ideas from the Chinese strategic tradition
Thomas Kane

Special Forces, Terrorism and Strategy

Warfare by other means
Alasdair Finlan

Imperial Defence
The old world order 1856–1956
Edited by Greg Kennedy
Imperial Defence
The old world order 1856–1956

Edited by Greg Kennedy

First published 2008
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
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© 2008 selection and editorial matter Greg Kennedy; individual
chapters the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
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ISBN 0-203-00243-1 Master e-book ISBN

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ISBN13: 978-0-203-00243-8 (ebk)
Contents

Introduction: the concept of Imperial Defence,

1856–1956 1
GREG KENNEDY

1 The Foreign Office and defence of empire,

1856–1914 9
T.G. OTTE

2 The Foreign Office and the defence of empire,

1919–1939 30
KEITH NEILSON

3 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 50

JOHN KENT

4 The Treasury and defence of empire 71

GEORGE PEDEN

5 The British Army and the empire, 1856–1956 91

DAVID FRENCH

6 The Royal Navy and the defence of empire,

1856–1918 111
ANDREW LAMBERT

7 The Royal Navy and imperial defence, 1919–1956 133

GREG KENNEDY

8 The RAF in imperial defence, 1919–1956 152

JAMES S. CORUM
viii Contents
9 Tradition and system: British intelligence and the
old world order, 1715–1956 176
JOHN ROBERT FERRIS

10 The empire that prays together stays together:

Imperial defence and religion, 1857–1956 197
A. HAMISH ION

11 Propaganda and the defence of empire, 1856–1956 218

STEPHEN BADSEY

12 The colonial empire and imperial defence 234

ASHLEY JACKSON

13 Coalition of the usually willing: the dominions and

imperial defence, 1856–1919 251
BRIAN P. FARRELL

14 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 303

ASHLEY JACKSON

Index 333
Introduction
The concept of Imperial Defence,
1856–1956
Greg Kennedy

Imperial Defence in the century, immediately following the end of the

Crimean War until the embarrassment of the Suez Crisis, was not a con-
stant. It was not a constant in the sense of how it was conceived in the
mind of the British strategic policy-making elite entrusted with the
defence of Britain and its empire. Although the concept of the empire was
inextricably linked to the British identity, the manner in which the empire
existed and how it was to be defended was constantly evolving. Directly
linked to this issue of consistency is the fact that resource allocation,
funding, technology and politics created other strategic inconsistencies in
the Imperial Defence formula.1 At times it was a vibrant and full part of
the national identity, while at other points in that century large parts of
England and the empire found the concept troubling at best. This lack
of consistency was the result of the diversity of the constituent parts
involved in creating an overarching national defence policy.
Those elites were charged with protecting Britain and its empire in a
security environment that had to take into account a wide range of factors.
The most important factors were managing changes in the domestic polit-
ical environment; shifts in national economic fortunes; technological
advances in the art of war due to increase or decrease in industrial capacity
and ability; changes to the international balance of power system, changes
to the system of administering security issues; and changes in the societal
values among the British and Imperial populations. It is fair to say,
however, that the concept of imperial defence, as an intellectual exercise,
was, despite a lack of consistency in image or manifestation, a reality.2 This
reality was not always supported by obvious or tangible action on the part
of those diverse elites, entwined in the process of providing the national
security strategy. The elite entrusted with the formulation of the imperial
defence policy laboured to obtain imperial security through a mix of coop-
erative ventures with other states who at least shared some of their own
interests and constructed an armed forces which was sufficient to defeat or
at least deter potential opponents. But at all times, in a uniquely British
fashion, the elite was governed by the need to ensure that the construction
2 G. Kennedy
and maintenance of the imperial defence policy did not consume so much
of the empire’s fiscal, industrial, human and economic resources that the
act of producing imperial defence altered the very fabric of what was being
protected.3 Therefore, due to this diversity in the factors contributing to
the management of imperial defence, and the corresponding ebbs and
flows of the idea of imperial defence within the totality that was empire as a
whole, the idea of imperial defence has often been erroneously identified
by some historians as more a myth than reality.4
This case of strategic fluctuation raises a difficult methodological ques-
tion for those wishing to ascertain the centrality of the concept of imperial
defence to the idea of Britishness: Does one measure the actions and phys-
ical appendages of the action of providing imperial defence, or, does one
have to locate the resting place of the idea and visions of imperial defence
within the imperial psyche in order to judge how valued the idea was?
The measuring of the manifestations of imperial defence is by far the
more obvious path to take. One can approach such a topic from a statisti-
cal and scientific standpoint.5 Measuring coaling stations, numbers of naval
units, money spent on armies and navies, how, when and where those mili-
tary units were to fight, foreign policies constructed to protect geographic
interests or strategic nations in the global balance of power system are only
some of the more familiar elements exposed to the historian’s quest to find
the primacy of imperial considerations in Britain’s national security policy.
Less obvious, and more revealing, is attempting to interrogate the minds of
the men who made those decisions. What view of the world condition, and
in particular the imperial condition, did they hold at the time of the
making of a particular decision?6 What aspects of the impact of empire on
finance, society, religion, culture, civilization did these men hold to the
fore as they spent more money on squadrons, regiments or bases? The
trick of the matter is that, in order to understand imperial defence in its
totality, the investigator is required to be able to follow both streams and
overlay them as he or she goes. Only then is it possible to speak of imperial
defence, the idea and action.7 And, it is the amalgamation of those two
paths that provides the explanation of Britishness that was imperial
defence and is still a large part of the British national security character.
In terms of the action or implementation elements of imperial defence,
the Royal Navy (RN) holds primacy of place. The RN was not only the
most important wielder of military power throughout this entire century
but also played a crucial role in the construction of imperial defence, fiscal
and foreign policies.8 The RN before 1914 was the one true guardian of
the empire, with responsibility for safeguarding the far-flung lines that
were the vital sea lines of communication that linked the global empire
into a coherent whole. Inculcated into the national identity of the nation
and empire as a whole, the RN was intellectually, physically, symbolically
and intuitively regarded as the embodiment of the martial nature of impe-
rial defence. Tied to a web of industrial and economic interests, through
 Introduction 3
its procurement, manpower, budgetary, and basing needs, the RN was big
business for both metropolitan Britain and imperial possessions alike.
After 1914, this role was challenged by the new technological aspirations
of the Royal Air Force (RAF) to be the guarantor of imperial defence.
However, the short-term effects of the application of air power, as well as
the technical limitations of aircraft in that era, in conjunction with the
geo-strategic realities of sea-power to the British Empire meant that the
RN never lost its dominant position amongst the services as the primary
service responsible for providing the physical protection of the empire.
Challenges to the RN from various parts of the empire itself, in the guise
of colonial and dominion nationalism, saw difficulties arise as to questions
of provision of forces, payment for forces and allocation of units after First
World War. However, despite these modest, emotive and at times irra-
tional demands for “independence” of action in naval matters, the reality
for the large dominions of Canada, Australia, South Africa and New
Zealand was that their own marginal efforts made no sense without the RN
as the mainstay and underpinning factor of any maritime defence strategy.
Technical training, equipment, doctrine and a plethora of other assets had
to be provided by the RN if these other “national” units were to survive in
any sort of professional naval form. This predominance went unchal-
lenged in any serious fashion until the age of the atomic bomb. In the
nuclear age following the end of the Second World War, all navies were
suspect and all national security strategies in need of rethinking. Even so,
the RN in the first decade following the conclusion of the war clung tight
to its title of predominant service.
The British Army, until the dire needs of the First World War changed
the strategic circumstances, was always a second sister. Enjoying spurts of
support in the pre-First World War period, the army found its salvation in
the idea of imperial defence. Never able to find political or economic
support as a rival to massive European armies, the British Army existed to
garrison the empire, usually in a post situated primarily to provide a major
base for the RN.9 As well, in India the acquisition and control of the jewel
of empire allowed a bigger army to be maintained away from the home
shires. Maintained in a cheaper economy, with easy access to manpower
and the rudimentary elements necessary for the creation and mainte-
nance of a modest army, the Indian Army was a pivotal part of the British
Army’s imperial defence capability. Geographically central, but a political
and ethnic risk, the Indian Army enjoyed a roller-coaster existence with its
Camberly brethren. The two world wars were anomalies for the relation-
ship between the empire and the British Army.
Imperial defence in these two wars worked as it was supposed to, in that
the centre core provided the bulk of the manpower, money, technology
and command, while the periphery contributed as much manpower,
finance and industry as it could. In each case, the beholdenness of the
periphery to the core, in terms of the British Army, was eroded. In the
4 G. Kennedy
Boer War, colonial troops happily served under tactical command of
British officers. By the First World War, operational command, with stra-
tegic input into the war’s direction and the British Army’s use were con-
ditions demanded by the periphery if their units were to be part of the
army. Tactical and operational prowess, combined with growing national
military cultures that thrived on the failure and “donkey” images of the
British Army, manifested themselves in the inter-war into an even greater
political factor in the negotiations regarding what price the core would
have to pay for the periphery’s contribution in the next European war. By
the end of the Second World War, all major dominions possessed first-rank
armies. Modelled, trained, equipped in most part and incorporating cen-
turies of tradition not available in their own national existences, these
dominions armies were now full-fledged, independent appendages of the
British Army. These armies could now protect, of their own accord, the
periphery of the empire. However, the process of conflict, alliances and
changing global balances of power, which had created the wherewithal for
the creation of these peripheral copies of the British Army, also helped to
cause a questioning of the need for empire at all any more in the post-
Second World War world. India and her vast military value left first, with its
leaving quickly followed by a less obvious but no less deliberate turning
away from the British Army by Australia and Canada towards closer ties
with the American military community. By 1956 the British Army, now con-
structed primarily for operations in Germany against the Soviet Union,
looked more like Wellington’s Army than it did the armies of 1914 or 1939.
The Continental Commitment had triumphed over imperial defence.
The RAF came late to the game of imperial defence, and its interest in
things imperial was also fleeting. The interwar period saw Hugh Trenchard
and other proponents of an independent RAF use the fear of spiralling
imperial policing costs to argue for the utility of air power for fulfilling that
role. But the lure of strategic bombing was already the mainstay of the
newest military service, and, unlike the RN, or even the British Army, the
RAF never subsumed the role of imperial defender into its service identity.
Pushed to the fore of the defence services funding competition through
acts of metropolitan defence performed by Fighter Command and the stra-
tegic bombing of Germany in the Second World War, the RAF left the
rationale of imperial defence quickly behind. The atomic age was also the
Air Age, and all small wars and minor roles were seen as either an annoy-
ance or an interesting sidelight in the post-Second World War RAF world.
Indeed, attempts to harness the new technologies of atom bomb and
bomber focused some of their wrath on the RN itself, as the RAF moved to
assert itself as the only defender of the British faith. But, by 1936, the RAF
was unable to define what the faith was. Grudgingly forced at times to con-
tinue to have to contribute to imperial missions, the post-1945 RAF con-
tinued to focus primarily on the strategic defence and bombing doctrines
that had won it such prominence in the Second World War and paid no
 Introduction 5
serious attention to the question of air power and the retention of air
power in the decade following the end of the war.
Underpinning these military services, as well as the diplomatic, eco-
nomic and fiscal power that accompanied them in the imperial defence
system, was an extensive system of intelligence provisioning. Information
and intelligence-gathering and processing were areas in which the Army,
Navy and Air Force provided their own specialist technological, tactical,
operational and strategic intelligence. These systems were fed into, and
were supplemented when required, by the intelligence created by the
Foreign Office, Treasury, Board of Trade, Department of Overseas Trade
and a plethora of other governmental departments. The varied intelli-
gence apparatus available in the colonies and dominions, some run by
central British agencies, many not, also fed into this web of information-
gathering and processing. As well, intelligence from private sources, such
as missionaries, journalists, bankers, shippers, police agencies, and so on,
who operated in the far-flung parts of the empire, all contributed to this
precursor of the Information Age. Information gathered from this
complex and highly organized system, but at times mismanaged, was trans-
mitted by state-of-the-art telegraph and telephone cable systems that were
the envy of the rest of the world. Radio systems, cryptography and code-
breaking were also vital parts of the evolution of the world’s most
sophisticated information-gathering and processing system. Without such
abilities, the blockade of the First World War, the operational and stra-
tegic decisions required in the interwar and the plethora of intelligence
requirements dictated by the needs of the Second World War and Cold
War would not have been achieved. Early investment in this system in the
late nineteenth century by the British Empire, in order to maintain mili-
tary supremacy, market supremacy, fiscal dominance, administrative
control and cultural influence, ensured that this system ushered in the
modern information revolution of the late twentieth century. The rapid
growth of the need for and ability to obtain information and intelligence
was something that the British Empire led the world in throughout the
century from 1856 to 1956. This growth in data creation and the need to
process it effectively and utilize it in an effective and timely fashion was
reflected in the bureaucratic and administrative functions that manifest
themselves in the formal governmental apparatus that was the nerve
centre of formal imperial defence.10
Of the greatest importance to this evolutionary process were the
increasing abilities of the Foreign Office and Treasury to gather a vast
amount of information and use it to influence and make Government
policy related to defending the British Empire’s position as the world’s
most powerful nation. Internal changes were required in the period to
these bodies to allow them to deal with the changing circumstances pre-
sented by domestic governmental change and the changes in the inter-
national system.11 As well, other departments such as the Board of Trade,
6 G. Kennedy
the Department of Overseas Trade, and most important, the Committee
of Imperial Defence were part of this administrative revolution that
allowed some semblance of the management of imperial affairs to take
place in a logical and reasoned way. No other nation had this structure, or
a need for it.12 While some have claimed that the pure weight and size of
such an administrative nightmare as the British Imperial Defence commit-
tee system did not allow for timely or effective decision-making to take
place, to argue such a point of view is to fail to understand the nature of
imperial defence. Often no decision needed making, rather it was that the
questions needed asking. And while it is true that there was often no
apparent hand on the tiller of imperial defence, the flexibility of such an
unstructured edifice was a protection in itself. Not bound to only one
General Staff or Imperial Council, having to contend constantly with the
cycle of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, the administrative structure of the
British Empire was able to find solutions when required, although not
always as fast as some would have liked. It was able to trade space for time
by its very vastness, able to create coalitions or alliances where none had
stood before in rapid order due to its geo-strategic realities, and was able
to mobilise the world’s greatest industrial and fiscal might in defence of its
ideas twice in a quarter of a century, something no other nation has or
had ever successfully done. So, while bureaucratic donkeys and missed
chances, muddling through and “it’s all right on the night” are often pejo-
rative ways of explaining the British Imperial Defence administrative
system, such is done in ignorance of the complexity and power of the vast
machinery. It was a system of ideas and beliefs that had the courage and
power of its convictions, as well as the muscle, metal and money that these
ideas and convictions created.
These ideas were the most powerful form of imperial defence. Peace
groups, imperial promoters, poets, artists, journalists and academics all
plied the troubled waters of Imperialism in the hundred years under
review.13 Missionary zeal, educational reform, the introduction of civil,
fiscal and criminal law, as well as the introduction of medicine, techno-
logy and outlawing of centuries-old customs, were all part of the process
of imperial defence. Certainly race was a key issue, and thus racism was a
form of communication and identification. It was a value that needed
defending and a fact of international relations that created strategic
mental maps, flavoured strategic assessments as well as investment strat-
egies and resource allocation.14 For many intellectuals and academics, as
well as politicians and administrators, the view was that Great Britain had
established between itself and its subject peoples a bond of moral
responsibility, a kind of imperial strength that no other empire enjoyed: a
sense of Britishness. This empire was an expression of not merely com-
mercial enterprise and force of arms but of a racial nation–producing
quality; and that the foundations of the empire were the self-governing
sections of it. Indeed, the Empire was seen as a vehicle for social reform
 Introduction 7
for all, including and most importantly Great Britain itself as ideas of
culture, race and civilisation permeated as aspects of that nation’s live,
consciously and sub-consciously. The British system of imperial defence
was the first modern British “Force For Good”, and it is the task of this
collection to show how its multiple parts were connected and operated.
Whether or not it achieved its lofty goal is a tale for other studies15

Notes
1 John Charmley, Splendid Isolation? Britain and the Balance of Power 1874–1914
(London, 1999); Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
(London, 1994); Anil Seal, ed., The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire:
The Ford Lectures and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1982); Niall Ferguson, Empire:
How Britain Made the Modern World (London, 2004).
2 C.J. Lowe, The Reluctant Imperialists: British Foreign Policy, 1878–1902, vols. I and
II (London, 1967); W.C.B. Tunstall, “Imperial Defence, 1815–1870”, vol. 2, pp.
807–41; “Imperial Defence, 1870–1897”, vol. 3, pp. 230–54; “Imperial Defence,
1897–1914”, vol. 3, pp. 563–604, all in the E.A. Benians, J.R.M. Butler and C.E.
Carrington eds, Cambridge History of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1940, 1959);
Keith Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: Anglo-Russian Relations, 1894–1917
(Oxford, 1995); D.C. Watt, “Imperial Defence Policy and Imperial Foreign
Policy, 1911–1939: A Neglected Paradox”, Journal of Commonwealth Political
Studies, 1(1963); John Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold
War, 1944–49 (Leicester, 1993).
3 David French, “Rationality and Irrationality in the Political Economy of British
Defence Policy: The Pre-1914 and Pre-1939 Eras Compared”, paper given at
the Second International Strategy Conference, Carlisle Barracks, 1991;
Antonín Basch, The New Economic Warfare (London, 1942).
4 Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence
Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (London, 1972); W. Wark, The Ultimate
Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1933–39 (Ithaca, NY, 1985); B.J.C.
McKercher, Transition of Power: Britain’s Loss of Global Pre-eminence to the United
States, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, 1999).
5 P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000, 2nd edn. (London,
2000).
6 T.G. Otte ed., The Makers of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher (Basing-
stoke, 2002); Greg C. Kennedy and Keith Neilson eds, Incidents and Inter-
national Relations: People, Power, and Personalities (Westport, CT, 2002).
7 Donald M. Schurman, John Beeler ed., Imperial Defence, 1868–1887 (London,
1997); Eric A. Walker, The British Empire: Its Structure and Spirit (Oxford, 1943).
8 John F. Beeler, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone and Disraeli Era, 1866–1880
(Stanford, CA, 1997); C.I. Hamilton, Anglo-French Naval Rivalry, 1840–1870
(Oxford, 1993); Andrew Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy
against Russia, 1853–56 (Manchester, 1990); G.A.H. Gordon, British Seapower
and Procurement Between the Wars (London, 1988); Nicholas Tracy ed., The
Collective Naval Defence of the Empire, 1900–1940 (London, 1997); Christopher
Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy between the Wars (London, 2000); Paul
Haggie, Britannia at Bay: The Defence of Britain’s Far Eastern Empire, 1919–1941
(Oxford, 1981); Greg Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the Far
East, 1933–1939 (London, 2002); T124, Sea Power (London, 1940).
9 David French, Raising Churchill’s Armies (Oxford, 1999); Hew Strachan, The First
World War (Oxford, 2000); Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
8 G. Kennedy
(London, 1994); David Killingray, “The Idea of a British Imperial African
Army”, Journal of African History, 20 (1979), pp. 421–35; Keith Neilson, Strategy
and Supply (London, 1984); Peter Burroughs, “Imperial Defence and the Victo-
rian Army”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 15 (1986), pp. 53–72;
R. Clutterbuck, The Long, Long War (London, 1967); Christopher Bayly and
Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies; The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945 (London, 2004).
10 Works of Antony Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia,
1914–1941 (Basingstoke, 2002); John Ferris, “ ‘Indulged in all too Little’?
Vansittart, Intelligence and Appeasement”, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6(1995),
pp. 122–75; Richard Aldrich, The Key to the South: Britain, the United States, and
Thailand during the Approach of the Pacific War (Oxford, 1993); Christopher
Andrew, Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community
(London, 1985).
11 D.N. Chester and F.M.G. Willson, The Organization of British Central Government,
1914–1956 (London, 1957); Nicholas d’Ombrain, War Machinery and High
Policy: Defence Administration in Peacetime Britain, 1902–1914 (Oxford, 1973);
John Darwin, Britain and Egypt in the Middle East: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath
of War, 1918–1922 (London, 1981); J. Connell, The “Office”: A Study of British
Foreign Policy and its Makers, 1919–1951 (London, 1958); Zara Steiner, The FO
and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge, 1968); Robert Johnson, British Impe-
rialism (Basingstoke, 2003); A. Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower,
1919–1939 (Georgia, SC, 1986).
12 Ian Drummond, British Economic Policy and the Empire, 1919–1939 (Toronto,
ON, 1972); H.F. Fraser, Great Britain and the Gold Standard (New York, 1933);
John Ferris, Men, Money and Diplomacy: The Evolution of British Strategic Policy,
1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY, 1989); Patricia Clavin, The Failure of Economic Diplomacy:
Britain, Germany, France and the United States, 1931–36 (London, 1996);
13 Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich eds, Special Issue Journal of Imperial and Com-
monwealth History, “The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity”, 31(2003);
Martin Ceadel, Semi-Detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement and Inter-
national Relations, 1854–1945 (Oxford, 2000); Rhodri Williams, Defending the
Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy, 1899–1915 (New Haven,
CT, 1991); Howard Robinson, The Development of the British Empire (New York,
1936); Lord Elton, Imperial Commonwealth (London, 1945); Lectures given at
the Canadian Institute on Economics and Politics, Canada: The Empire and the
League (Toronto, ON, 1936); Basil Williams, The British Empire (London,1928).
14 Vaugh Cornish, A Geography of Imperial Defence (London, 1922) Cornish was a
regular lecturer at the Imperial War College in the 1920s; Michael Freeden ed.,
Minutes of the Rainbow Circle, 1894–1924, Camden Fourth Series, vol. 38
(London, 1989); Brig. D.H. Cole, Imperial Military Geography (London, 1953);
Stephen King-Hall, Imperial Defence: A Book for Taxpayers (London, 1926).
15 Andrew Thompson, The Empire Strikes Back?: The Impact of Imperialism on Britain
from the Mid-Nineteenth Century (London, 2005); Bernard Porter, The Absent-
Minded Imperialists: What the British Really Thought about Empire (Oxford, 2004);
W. David McIntyre, The Imperial Frontier in the Tropics, 1865–75 (London, 1967).
1 The Foreign Office and defence
of empire, 1856–1914
T.G. Otte

and a statesman who faces the truth, . . . and preserves what is sound in the
old diplomatic system, will deserve the thanks of all thoughtful men.
Percy M. Thornton1

There is no single, comprehensive scholarly account of the problems of

imperial defence as a problem of British foreign policy. For the most part,
studies of nineteenth century British diplomacy may be categorised under
two broad headings: those examining relations with other European
Powers, almost invariably with an exclusively bilateral slant or focused on
the policies of an individual Foreign Secretary, and those dealing with
British policy overseas, usually with a strongly regional focus. There are
some notable exceptions. The late C.J. Lowe’s study of Lord Salisbury’s
Mediterranean policy, for instance, examines relations with Berlin, Vienna
and Rome as well as a wide range of strategic factors revolving around the
notion of Britain’s growing international ‘isolation’ in the 1890s.2 A more
recent and conceptually very significant work is R. Keith Neilson’s account
of Britain’s policy towards her principal and most persistent, long-term
enemy, Russia. At one level a study of bilateral relations, it is more than
that. In using relations with Russia as a prism, Neilson offers a reassess-
ment of the status of Britain as the pre-eminent world power before 1914,
as well as of the nature of British foreign policy.3
These, however, are exceptions. In general, the historiography of
Britain’s external relations between the Crimean War and the First World
War tends to reflect the dual nature of British power. The British Empire
consisted of two strategic blocs, the British–European and the Anglo-
Indian.4 This duality also influenced Britain’s foreign policy. Nineteenth
century Europe was the powerhouse of international politics. Europe’s
leading nations constituted the select club of the Great Powers. As one of
the six Great Powers of the day, in her relations with other European
nations, Britain operated within the established contemporary system of
Great Power relations. The norms of the so-called Concert of Europe,
which underpinned European diplomacy throughout the century even
10 T.G. Otte
though ‘Concert’ activity varied over time in its intensity, and the constel-
lations among the other Powers, as shaped by alliances and other treaties,
thus placed certain ‘systemic’ constraints upon British foreign policy.
Britain’s worldwide interests and her global reach, at least until the 1870s,
and perceived naval supremacy gave her a pre-eminent status among the
other Powers. ‘Systemic’ aspects were therefore, largely, though not
wholly, absent in British overseas policy. In Russia, as her principal long-
term threat, of course, she had to deal with a Power that was a European
Great Power, and therefore a ‘systemic’ Power, but whose Asiatic ambi-
tions affected British interests outside the constraints of the European
system.5 Despite its significance, the dynamic of ‘systemic’ constraints and
‘non-systemic’ factors in nineteenth century British foreign policy still
awaits scholarly examination.
Much of contemporary thinking about the requirements and means of
imperial defence inevitably revolved around Britain’s armed forces, as is
amply demonstrated by the chapters focused on the military service in this
collection. Nevertheless, foreign policy played, and was frequently seen to
play, a significant role in safeguarding the empire. At the very least, the
‘soft power’ of diplomacy was a cheap means of defending imperial inter-
ests.6 This consideration gained in strength in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century. Until the Crimean War, Britain was able to maintain her
naval pre-eminence over her actual and potential rivals, as the most effect-
ive means of protecting her imperial and commercial interests, at minimal
expense to the Exchequer.7 The exigencies of the war severely tested
Britain’s financial resources. A pragmatic mixture of increased taxation
and borrowing quite comfortably met the requirements of the moment,
and so underscored the fundamentally rude health of the nation’s
finances. Still, between them, increased national debt and the ignomin-
ious failure of Britain’s military system in the face of the Crimean emer-
gency weakened the confidence of Britain’s political elite. This, combined
with the changing nature of British politics after the second reform act of
1867, affected the framing and executing of British foreign and imperial
policy. The rising middle class’s demands for greater budgetary stringency
began to outweigh the Whig aristocracy’s traditional appreciation of
continental affairs. Victorian finance pursued strictly economic ends; and
the nineteenth century system of government, moreover, was such as to
reinforce conservative fiscal orthodoxy. This, in turn, helped to engender
a generally more cautious approach to external problems. Financial con-
straints and fiscal conservatism did not lend themselves to a rumbustuous
Palmerstonian policy of bluff.8 The effect on foreign and imperial policy
was twofold. In European affairs, it led to greater caution. With the reduc-
tion in government expenditure, both the size and the preparedness of
the armed forces fell until the mid-1880s. The growth of the continental
railway networks, meanwhile, began to undermine Britain’s commercial
dominance but also reduced the strategic advantages of the country’s
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 11
naval supremacy.9 Britain’s military insignificance compared with the mass
conscript armies of the continental Great Powers, and the inapplicability
of naval pressure against these Powers, reinforced a trend towards selec-
tive and strictly non-military interference.10
Victory in the Crimea in 1856 ensured the containment of the Russian
menace, at least for some period of time. The Crimean coalition was the
product of the allied struggle against Russia, ostensibly in defence of the
Ottoman Empire and the reality of the wider balance of power in Europe.
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 underscored Britain’s commitment to the con-
tainment of Russia, while the Crimean system was founded on an Anglo-
Austrian attempt to preserve the outcome of the war. Yet, it was built on
sand. French commitment to the status quo was never firm, and even
Austria was ready to abandon aspects of the Crimean settlement.11 By the
1870s, the system had unravelled, and disintegration affected the two stra-
tegic blocs of British power in equal measure. In Asia, Russia’s unchecked
expansion in Central Asia increased her pressure on British India.12 In
November 1870, exploiting Europe’s preoccupation with the Franco-
Prussian War, Russia renounced the Black sea clauses of the Paris peace
treaty, thereby effectively remilitarising the sea and the surrounding
area.13 By the time of the ‘Great Eastern Crisis’ of 1875–8, especially after
the preliminary peace treaty of San Stefano, Britain faced the prospect of
Russian dominance of the Balkans, to be followed in the near future by a
Russian descent on Constantinople. In that case, Russia would have been
able to project her naval power into the Eastern Mediterranean and pres-
surise Britain’s vital sea lines of communications there. Already during the
early stages of the crisis, Britain’s naval tools had proved practically
useless. Only diplomacy could provide a solution. Disraeli’s and Salisbury’s
surefooted policy before and during the Congress of Berlin ensured
Russia’s isolation and thus forced her to relinquish her ill-gotten gains.
The acquisition of Cyprus shored up Britain’s position in the Mediter-
ranean, and gave her the means of pinning down the Russian fleet, if ever
the Tsar’s government decided to break the Treaty of Berlin and force the
Turkish straits.14
Britain’s ability to act unilaterally in defence of her imperial interests
remained curtailed however. Already the second Afghan War of 1879 and
the abortive Herat Convention with Persia demonstrated Britain’s limited
ability to sustain a consistently ‘forward’ policy in Central Asia in the face
of Russian expansionism.15 Gladstone’s well-meant but ultimately disas-
trous attempt to revive the ‘Concert of Europe’ served further to encour-
age Russia’s ‘Drang nach Osten’ whilst simultaneously isolating Britain
from the status quo Powers in Europe. During the Pendjeh crisis in 1885,
war with Russia seemed imminent, and though the latter eventually disen-
gaged, the problems of facing Russia unaided were clearly discernible.16
The precarious situation in 1885 underlined also the interaction between
systemic constellations in Europe and developments in the Anglo-Indian
12 T.G. Otte
sphere. For as long as Russia was allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary
in the Dreikaiserbund, Russia was potentially in a position to pressurise points
of strategic interest for Britain. With the collapse of the combination of the
three Eastern monarchies in 1886–7 during the Bulgarian crisis, Britain’s
diplomatic and imperial problems eased somewhat. With a political
settlement with Russia not feasible, Salisbury sought a diplomatic solution
to Britain’s Russian problem in an informal leaning towards Germany
and an alignment with Italy and Austria-Hungary in the Mediterranean
entente.17 At the same time, Salisbury’s failure to negotiate an evacuation of
Egypt, combined with a growing realisation that the navy could no longer
force the now heavily fortified Dardanelles, provided an incentive to place
Britain’s position in Egypt on a firmer footing. Ironically, then, the relative
success of the Mediterranean entente in containing Russia in the Balkans ulti-
mately undermined the combination with Vienna and Rome, as Cairo
began to replace Constantinople as a key British strategic interest in the
Eastern Mediterranean.18 The increasing importance of Britain’s hold on
the country on the Nile brought East Africa and the Upper Nile Valley into
the sight of British foreign policy. The Heligoland–Zanzibar exchange with
Germany, the Anglo-Italian delimitation of sphere of influence on the Horn
of Africa, the Anglo-French West Africa agreement (all of 1890) and Rose-
bery 1894 Congo agreement with the Belgians – all aimed at ensuring that
the upper reaches of the Nile were kept out of the hands of another
Power.19 To attain this end, Salisbury used a judicious mixture of treaty
diplomacy and military force. His decision in 1896 to reconquer the
Sudan, following Italy’s rout at Adowa in March and the stalemate in the
Anglo-French talks on Africa, prepared the ground for the Fashoda stand-
off with the French in September 1898. France’s decision to yield to
British pressure, in turn, led to the Anglo-French agreement of March
1899, in which Paris acknowledged Britain’s predominance in the Upper
Nile Valley. This also underlined Britain’s reduced dependence on the
Mediterranean entente that had withered away in 1897.20
It was symptomatic of the nineteenth century system of government that,
despite the key role of foreign policy in defending imperial interests, there
was no central coordinating mechanism at the heart of government. Until
the creation of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) in 1902, cooper-
ation between the Foreign, India and Colonial Offices and the two armed
services departments was on an ad hoc basis, usually in reaction to emerg-
ing crises rather than in reflection of longer-term strategic objectives. At
Cabinet level, the Foreign Office (FO) enjoyed a degree of autonomy that
was not vouchsafed to other departments of state. Unlike the rest of White-
hall, the FO and the diplomatic service, which latter remained a separate
branch of the civil service until its merger with the FO in 1918, were relat-
ively inexpensive. Treasury interference was, therefore, restricted to matters
of administration, personnel and pensions. An exception was loans, espe-
cially to China, Persia or Latin America, issued by British banking houses
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 13
with the encouragement of the FO. Here, the need for Treasury approval
potentially restricted the Office’s freedom of manoeuvre.21 Crucially, the
FO’s superior status among other Whitehall departments was a function of
hierarchy. It reflected the contemporary constitutional notion that foreign
affairs were part of the royal prerogative. As ‘the official organ and adviser
of the Crown in its intercourse with foreign powers’, Her (or His) Majesty’s
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs enjoyed a status more ele-
vated than that of other senior ministers.22 While in theory the final
decision-making power over foreign policy was vested in the Cabinet, it
was a theory only rarely tested in practice. Notwithstanding the deep divi-
sions over the Eastern Question within Disraeli’s second government, or
the clash between Rosebery and Harcourt, his thwarted rival for the post-
Gladstonian leadership of the Liberal party, or Cabinet opposition to Salis-
bury’s ideas of a more coercive policy during the Armenian crisis of 1895–6,
or even the split within the Asquith government between ‘economists’ and
‘imperialists’, these were exceptions. Overall, the Cabinet was no effective
check on the powers of the Foreign Secretary. Cabinet involvement in
foreign affairs was intermittent at best. In general, the most ministers ‘know
and care nothing about foreign affairs’.23 As a matter of routine, relevant
FO papers were circulated to the Colonial, India and War secretaries, the
First Lord of the Admiralty and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most
administrations of the period also had in their ranks the odd senior elder
statesman with special expertise or interest in foreign and imperial ques-
tions. The roles of the Duke of Devonshire in the Unionist administration
after 1895, the Marquess of Ripon in the Campbell-Bannerman govern-
ment or Viscount Haldane in the Asquith cabinet are cases in point.
Central to the foreign policy-making process was the relationship between
the two tenants of Nos 10 and 14 Downing Street. In the Earl of Granville’s
felicitous phrase, the Prime Minister ‘should only appear as a Deus ex
machinâ’, intervening at the crucial moment to facilitate the solution to the
problems under discussion.24 This consideration also explains why the
Marquis of Salisbury decided to hold the two offices in conjunction for
large parts of his premiership.
The small number of politicians who served as Foreign Secretary in the
nineteenth century underscores the exclusivity and relative autonomy of
the post. Their previous political and administrative experience is also
indicative of the wider imperial context of British foreign policy. During
the period 1856–1914, there were only 11 Foreign Secretaries. Most of
them served several times at the head of the FO: Salisbury four times;
Clarendon and Granville three times; and Derby, Malmesbury, Russell and
Rosebery twice each. Only Grey, Iddesleigh (whose brief spell at the FO
was the exception during this period), Kimberley, and Lansdowne held the
office once only. With the exceptions of Malmesbury and Rosebery, all had
previous diplomatic or imperial experience, though the latter had at least
served in a Cabinet post before his elevation to the foreign secretaryship.
14 T.G. Otte
Some, like Clarendon, Granville and Kimberley, had held diplomatic posts.
Russell, Derby, Granville and Kimberley had previously been Colonial Sec-
retaries. There were three former India Secretaries among the FO chiefs
in this period: Derby, Kimberley and Salisbury. Russell and Lansdowne had
held the War Office. The latter had also held senior positions in imperial
administration as Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India. And
finally, Derby, Granville, Kimberley and Grey had served their political
apprenticeships as Parliamentary Under-Secretaries at the FO. Two
Foreign Secretaries, Salisbury and Rosebery, succeeded to the premiership,
and Derby might have done so. At the same time, the FO was seen also as
an appropriate office for the former Prime Minister Lord John Russell.
Imperial concerns were also reflected in the FO’s administrative struc-
ture and the career patterns of senior officials and diplomatists. Of the
seven permanent heads of the department in the period covered here, five
had been connected with Anglo-Russian relations prior to their appoint-
ment: Charles Hardinge and Arthur Nicolson as ambassadors at St. Peters-
burg; Edmund Hammond as senior clerk of the Oriental Department; and
Philip Currie and Thomas Sanderson as heads of the Turkish Department
and its successor, the Eastern Department, respectively. Thus, the personnel
arrangements at the Office reflected the significance of the Russian factor
for Britain’s foreign and imperial policies throughout the nineteenth
century.25 Among the senior diplomats, some acquired reputations as area
experts. Sir Nicholas O’Conor or Sir Arthur Nicolson, for instance, were
acknowledged ‘Eastern’ diplomats with expertise in Chinese, Turkish and
Russian affairs (O’Conor) and Persian, Turkish, Moroccan and Russian
questions (Nicolson). Sir J. Rennell Rodd’s East African experience was
crucial in his later appointment as ambassador at Rome, while Sir Arthur
Hardinge was regarded as an authority on Persian and Central Asian
matters.26 The FO internal structure mirrored wider changes in inter-
national politics. Thus, for instance, the creation in 1899 of a separate Far
Eastern Department provided for more specialised advice at a time when
much international attention was focused on this area.27
It was as much a reflection of the superior status of the FO as of the
lack of proper policy planning and coordination in Whitehall that fre-
quently the FO was able to dictate imperial policy. Thus, for instance,
Lord John Russell decided early in 1860 to cede the Bay Islands colony off
the coast of Honduras to that state without consulting the Colonial
Office, which had issued certain guarantees to the population of the
islands. Removing a source of tension in relations with the United States
had overriding priority.28 It was on the basis of Russell’s treaty policy in
West Africa and the manoeuvres of Britain’s consuls in the region in the
late 1850s that the FO forced the Colonial Office to acquiesce in early
1861 in the annexation of Lagos for a mixture of humanitarian (anti-
Slavery) and commercial reasons, but principally in order to forestall
French plans for a military establishment there at a time when British
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 15
policy was subject to repeated French war and invasion scares.29 Salisbury
at the FO, forcefully aided by Disraeli, pushed through Cabinet the
decision to acquire Cyprus from Turkey in April–May 1878. Obtaining a
foothold in Ottoman territory was deemed to be vital as a means of block-
ing Russia’s further advance in the Near East, as well as a means for con-
trolling what might some day become the great highway to India through
northern Syria.30 It is suggestive of the ill-defined borders between foreign
and colonial affairs at the time when the FO initially administered that
island under the supervision of Philip Currie, senior clerk of the Office’s
Turkish Department and a future Permanent Under-Secretary. In a
similar manner, territories north of the Zambezi River, including the
British Central Africa protectorate, and later Uganda were originally
under the Office’s administration.31 No such interdepartmental border
disputes arose when in 1898 Salisbury and the FO decided upon the
acquisition of the northern Chinese harbour of Weihaiwei as a strategic
counterpoise to recent German and Russian seizures of Chinese ports as
well as a sop to a critical press at home. It was symptomatic of the absence
of a proper policy coordinating mechanism that the decision to take Wei-
haiwei was driven by Salisbury and senior officials at the FO without prior
consultation of the Admiralty or the embryonic Cabinet defence commit-
tee. Indeed, the navy department was anxious to rid itself of Salisbury’s
gift base, and, having administered it jointly with the War Office from
1899, both service departments decided in 1901 completely to divest
themselves of their joint responsibilities by passing the leasehold into the
care of the Colonial Office.32
Relations between the Foreign and Colonial Offices were, if not close,
at any rate not distant. Frequently, colonial problems could only be solved
within a wider international context; and this required closer
coordination of efforts by the two ministries. One such instance was
the settlement in 1906–7 of the future status of the New Hebrides islands,
the last remaining territories in the South Pacific unclaimed by any of the
Powers. While British diplomacy aimed to moderate French claims in the
question as well as to block rumoured German ambitions on the islands,
the Colonial Office worked on the government of the Australian Com-
monwealth to accept the terms of the Anglo-French convention.33 Con-
tacts between the two Offices also extended to personnel exchanges. Sir
Julian Pauncefote, Permanent Under-Secretary at the FO in the 1880s and
then Britain’s first ambassador at Washington, began his official career at
the Colonial Office where he rose to become Legal Assistant Under-
Secretary before taking up the same position at the FO in 1876.34 Con-
versely, Sir Robert Meade began his official career in the FO and served
on several diplomatic missions before transferring to the Colonial Office
as an Assistant Under-Secretary in 1871, eventually to become one of the
outstanding permanent heads of that department (1892–7).35 Meade and
Pauncefote’s cases involved permanent career changes. But there were
16 T.G. Otte
also temporary personnel transfers between the two Offices. The diplomat
W. Conyngham Greene, legation secretary at Tehran and later Ambas-
sador at Tokyo, was seconded to the Colonial Office in 1896 to act as
British agent at Pretoria, where he remained until the outbreak of hostili-
ties with the two Boer republics.
Relations with the India Office (IO) were more complicated. To an
extent, this reflected the somewhat anomalous position of the Office
among the other great departments of state. As Lord George Hamilton,
who held the seals of the IO several times, later reflected in his memoirs, it
was ‘a miniature government in itself’.36 The characterisation of the
Office’s departmental remit by its long-serving permanent head Sir Arthur
Godley, the later Lord Kilbracken, bears repetition: ‘it is concerned with all
the affairs, great and small of a gigantic empire, and contains under one
roof some eight or nine departments, corresponding respectively to the
Treasury, Board of Trade, the FO, and so on’.37 Developments in India’s
strategic perimeter in Central Asia and the effects of European diplomacy
on India made it necessary that the Foreign and India Offices communi-
cated regularly and frequently. The bulk of this communication consisted
of copies of despatches to and from the British embassy at St. Petersburg
and reports by the Indian government’s military intelligence branch.38 The
two departments also had joint responsibilities in Asia. In India’s central
Asian security glacis, some British consular officials were directly respons-
ible to the Indian government, such as the agents at Kabul and, perhaps
most famously, Sir George Macartney, the consul at Kashgar in Sinkiang,
China’s most westerly province.39 In addition, the India and FOs jointly
subsidised a number of consulates and legations in the region around the
Persian Gulf, where the two departments also shared areas of joint jurisdic-
tion. Thus, the consuls at Aden or the political resident in the Gulf at
Muscat were recruited from the Indian Political Service but were respons-
ible to the British minister at Tehran. The latter was appointed by the FO
from the ranks of career diplomats, though a notable exception was the
appointment in 1894 as minister to Persia of Sir Mortimer Durand, who
had previously been Indian Foreign Secretary. Similarly, the FO clerk,
Charles Sebastian Somers-Cocks, was seconded to the IO’s foreign depart-
ment as assistant secretary for two years (1904–6). An exception of a kind
was also Evelyn Baring, the later Earl of Cromer, who had been private
secretary to the Viceroy of India before becoming British representative on
the Egyptian Caisse de la dette publique, the debt administration created by
the European Powers at Cairo, a transfer that would eventually see him
emerge as Britain’s de facto ruler over Egypt at the end of the century.40
Durand’s transfer to the diplomatic service and Cromer’s straddling of the
Indian and proconsular fields were exceptions. Generally, there were no
personnel exchanges of the kind that took place between the Foreign and
Colonial Offices. There was, however, the joint exercise of responsibilities.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the government of India paid half the
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 17
costs of the Tehran legation, although there were no Indian officials on its
staff. In 1914, as many as 13 of the 23 salaried consular positions in Persia
were paid out of Indian government funds.41
Nevertheless, in normal times relations between the two departments
‘were carried on with great formality and some jealousy’, especially where
international politics were concerned.42 To an extent this reflected pro-
found differences in the ‘official mind’ of the two departments. With
India’s security usually not under immediate threat, the IO and the govern-
ment at Delhi and Simla tended to stress longer-range developments and
policies, usually with a view to formulating an early ‘forward’ action to pre-
empt possible actions by foreign Powers. The FO, by contrast, moved in a
much more dynamic and fluid environment, where differences of interest
with other governments always had the potential of escalating into crises.
British diplomacy operated on the assumption that any disagreement with
another Great Power carried the risk of military conflict. In consequence,
Britain’s foreign policy tended to be status quo oriented and conciliatory,
reactive rather ‘forward’.43 Inevitably, conciliating diverging departmental
perspectives and interests so as to formulate joint policy positions was a
cumbersome and slow process. This did not preclude cooperation, but it
did not facilitate it either. Senior officials in the IO were anxious not ‘to be
exploited by the FO’.44 The submission by the Indian authorities to the
‘greater imperial considerations’ often claimed by the FO was grudging at
best. In 1898–9, during the talks on the Persian loan project, the two
Permanent Under-Secretaries, Sir Thomas Sanderson (FO) and Sir Arthur
Godley (IO), consulted with each other. But it was Sanderson who pre-
pared the ground for discussions with the Treasury, the Imperial Bank of
Persia and the Tehran government and who formulated the British govern-
ment’s position.45 Friction between the two Offices grew considerably
during Curzon’s viceroyalty, when various questions connected with the
Persian Gulf came to the fore. Interdepartmental tensions, combined with
the already complex and cumbersome policy-making process, meant that
the ultimate policy decisions were often so delayed or so diluted that they
lost all practical meaning, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of
Selborne, noted in 1903: ‘What an intolerable method of doing business!
Indian Government, India Office, Minister at Tehran, FO, Cabinet Com-
mittee, Treasury, Cabinet! Bah! the Russians ought to walk round us each
time’.46
A further group of officials close to the centre of the foreign policy-
making process were the members of Britain’s nascent intelligence ser-
vices. Following the release over recent years of nineteenth century secret
service files, and the pending release of further intelligence-related
material, this formerly ‘missing dimension’ can now be more fully incor-
porated into analyses of British foreign and imperial policy.47 Although
there was no formal organisation or a properly constituted ‘intelligence
community’ yet, internal channels of communication existed that made
18 T.G. Otte
senior intelligence officers part of a wider foreign policy ‘strategic clique’.
The views, for instance, of Sir John Ardagh, the head of military intelli-
gence in the 1890s, were sought by the Permanent Under-Secretary of the
FO.48 A great deal of the intelligence gathering, limited though it was in
comparison with later twentieth century practices, was financed out of the
annual secret service vote, which was administered by the FO’s Permanent
Under-Secretary. The fund could be used to finance activities which the
Foreign Secretary thought ought to remain secret. These were often, but
not exclusively, related to intelligence gathering, usually through ad hoc
informants or agents. Senior diplomats abroad were themselves often
involved in intelligence work, though such activities were largely confined
to non-European countries. Successive heads of mission at Constantino-
ple or Peking cultivated secret sources within the governments there.
Such efforts were often extensive and remarkably reminiscent of methods
usually associated with later periods. At Peking, for instance, the British
minister there had established a British hospital in the Chinese quarter of
the capital at the end of 1902, paid for out of the secret service fund. The
real purpose of the establishment, however, was not so much the adminis-
tration of medicine to ailing Chinese, but to serve as a kind of ‘safe
house’, an innocuous meeting place for native informants and the
Chinese Secretary of the legation.49 When in 1909 the Asquith govern-
ment, reacting to the contemporary ‘spy hysteria’ which had affected the
public and Whitehall alike, set up the Haldane committee to investigate
the need for more organised counter-espionage measures, the FO
retained an important role in the nascent secret service. The Office’s
Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Charles Hardinge, well versed in the craft
of the trade since his days in charge of the St. Petersburg embassy, was
a senior member on the committee. While the primary function of the
fledgling organisation was counter-intelligence, there was a clear under-
standing that political intelligence remained the business of the FO;50
even so, the secret service was financed out of FO funds. Relations
between the Office and the new service, however, were anything but
smooth. Ironically, although the senior diplomats appreciated the
significance of intelligence, the Office guarded its preserve against inter-
lopers. Attempts by the intelligence service to use Britain’s consular offi-
cials as additional sources of operational intelligence led to constant
friction with the FO.51
From the turn of the nineteenth century, there was also a growing
bureaucratic awareness across Whitehall that a major war was then a realis-
tic eventuality. This heightened an awareness of the need for properly
organised intelligence gathering. The absence of such organisation or,
indeed, intelligence sources was keenly felt during the Boer War.52
Bureaucratic and parliamentary pressure resulted in a series of official
enquiries into various aspects of Britain’s armed and intelligence services.
Responding to such pressure, the new Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour,
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 19
who had himself become increasingly disturbed by the inadequacy of the
Cabinet’s existing defence committee, established the CID in December
1902.53 This body never had any executive authority, and its wartime func-
tions were dispersed among other organisations. But its formation created
a new interdepartmental forum, chaired by the Prime Minister, for the
discussion of strategic questions affecting foreign and imperial policy. It
was an attempt, in the contemporary spirit of ‘national efficiency’, to
apply a broader and more systematic approach to defence planning; and
the CID was to prove the principal advisory body on imperial and home
defence matters until 1939.54
From about 1901 onwards, considerations of the strategic requirements
of imperial defence began to have a more direct impact on foreign policy.
At one level, this reflected the differences in temperament and personality
between Salisbury and his successors, Lansdowne and Grey. Lord Salisbury
had encouraged the work of the military intelligence branch under Gen-
erals Brackenbury, Chapman and Ardagh, and he regularly received and
studied intelligence reports. He also authorised additional funding for the
branch’s work from the Secret service vote, for example, to consolidate
the information gathering to the north of Meshed up to the Oxus river,
commonly accepted as Afghanistan’s frontier with Russia.55 There were
instances when Salisbury’s decisions were guided by intelligence assess-
ments provided by the military and Admiralty intelligence branches, such
as the abandoning of his earlier preference for a forcing of the Turkish
Straits as a means of coercing the Sultan’s government during the Armen-
ian massacres in 1895–6.56 His recognition of the need for intelligence
gathering and his acceptance of the recommendations of the secret ser-
vices were entirely pragmatic; and he was frequently dismissive of military
and naval advisers, as the First Lord of Admiralty noted ‘[Salisbury] very
characteristically pooh-poohed the present naval and military Defence
Committee as its members were all professionals and professionals were
always narrow-minded’.57 Lansdowne was more receptive to advice by pro-
fessionals. His previous, somewhat unfortunate, experience at the helm of
the unreformed War Office and, more important, his lengthy spells in
imperial administration had sharpened his understanding of the military
requirements of the empire and the dangers of over-extension.
The differences in Salisbury and Lansdowne’s responses to intelligence
advice were not simply rooted in their different personalities. They reflected
also the shifts that had occurred in the wider strategic landscape within
which British foreign policy operated at the beginning of the twentieth
century. British military planning was still primarily concerned with the
eventuality of a war with the Franco-Russian combination. Such a conflict, a
report by the military intelligence branch warned in August 1901, would be
prolonged and would spell disaster for all parts of the empire.58 Lansdowne
and the FO were fully aware of such deliberations. Policy planning discus-
sions within the department, in fact, reflected the strategic deliberations of
20 T.G. Otte
the armed services as well as the growing Treasury anxiety about Britain’s
mushrooming budget deficit as a result of the South African war. Acknowl-
edging concerns of the naval authorities about an over-extension of naval
resources, and in nod to Treasury pressure for an overall curb on expendi-
ture, the Assistant Under-Secretary of the FO, Francis Bertie, recommended
in a series of memoranda in the summer of 1901 a reciprocal, geog-
raphically defined arrangement with Japan as the best means of containing
Russia’s threat to the status quo in the Far East, Britain’s most pressing over-
seas problem at that time. A regional defence pact would act as a deterrent
against Russia but would also help to reduce the strain on Britain’s naval
and financial resources.59 The constraints were very real. Technological
changes in naval architecture led to significant increases in the production
costs of naval vessels in the period between the passing of the 1889 Naval
Defence Act and 1904. The expansion and acceleration of the French and
Russian armament programmes exacerbated the situation. The need to
increase the Royal Navy’s (RN) narrow margin of superiority over the com-
bined naval forces of France and Russia, and to adapt British ships to the
changes in enemy battleship design, led to a 20 per cent increase in the cost
of the 1901–2 building programme alone.60 In the summer and autumn of
1901, the Earl of Selborne, the First Lord of the Admiralty, warned that, in
view of the increased naval competition by other Powers and Britain’s own
naval overstretch, foreign policy had to provide the solution. As the First Sea
Lord argued, ‘our hitherto followed policy of “splendid isolation” may no
longer be possible’.61 Thus, the Admiralty’s strategic resource management,
the Treasury’s attempts to curb spending and the FO’s evolving diplomatic
strategy reinforced each other. The result was a new dynamic within White-
hall, where an axis of these three departments of state dominated foreign
and imperial policy discussions.62 It enabled Lansdowne to carry through
the revised Hay–Pauncefote treaty of November 1901 with the United
States, under which Britain effectively relinquished the Western hemisphere
to Washington’s custodianship. The treaty, ‘one of the great treaties of the
twentieth century’, laid the foundations for the rapid improvement in
Anglo-American relations and the ‘special relationship’ of later years.63 But,
mending fences with America was purchased at the price of recognising
American naval supremacy in the Western hemisphere and thus having to
conform British policy to that of the United States. More significantly, for
the immediate future in 1901, naval considerations encouraged Lansdowne
to pursue the option of a Japanese alliance. He expected the alliance to
safeguard British interests in the Far East, without entailing European com-
mitments. The combination with Japan, therefore, underscored Britain’s
continued aloofness from the European Great Powers. It did not mark the
end of ‘splendid isolation’.64 The combination of British and Japanese naval
forces established a Russo-Japanese balance of tension in northern China
and Korea, the main focus of Great Power diplomacy around the turn of
the century. Delicately poised, it nevertheless offered a kind of strategic
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 21
umbrella for the protection of British regional interests against Russian
ambitions. Although essentially reactive and defensive, it was not without
risks, for the combination with Japan did not reduce the likelihood of a
Russo-Japanese conflict.65
Following Russia’s defeat at the hands of Japan in 1905, considerations of
European diplomacy and imperial defence became more closely entwined.
The ‘catastrophe in the Korea Straits’ eliminated Russia as a naval factor.
Her military weakness combined with domestic instability, moreover, effect-
ively disabled the Franco-Russian alliance. This helped to ease the various
strains on Britain’s over-extended resources. During the Anglo-Japanese
talks in 1905 about the renewal of the 1902 alliance, the CID pushed hard
for a geographical extension of the renewed alliance’s scope.66 Indeed, the
second alliance of August 1905 not only then covered India but was also
much tighter, with the casus belli triggered by the attack of just one Power on
either party. The revision of the alliance had the effect of ‘rais[ing] the wall
of our back garden to prevent an over-adventurous neighbour [i.e. Russia]’,
as Lansdowne aptly commented.67 Russia’s weakness worked in Britain’s
favour. On taking office, Lansdowne’s successor, Sir Edward Grey, stressed
his wish ‘to see Russia restored in the councils of Europe, & I hope on
better terms with us than she has yet been’.68 Given Russia’s need to consoli-
date her position, the St. Petersburg government was willing to negotiate a
settlement with Britain. Grey, aided by the India Secretary John Morley, suc-
ceeded in overcoming opposition to an Anglo-Russian accord from within
the IO as well as the Liberal Party. The convention of August 1907 removed
long-standing Anglo-Russian frictions in Asia, and so further strengthened
Britain’s position in Asia, though Grey’s simultaneous attempts to negotiate
further Japanese assistance for Britain in India in the event of a collapse of
the convention with Russia failed.69
While Russia’s defeat in 1905 blunted her advance in Asia and so
increased the security of Britain’s Asiatic position, it also disrupted the
European equilibrium. The German challenge of France over Morocco in
1905 was a direct result of the disabling of France’s alliance with Russia. In
the changed post-conflict circumstances, British foreign policy was forced
to lend greater support to France than was originally warranted under the
terms of the 1904 Anglo-French entente. German pressure transformed
the settlement of outstanding imperial problems with France into a ‘virtual
diplomatic alliance’, though Grey insisted on the non-binding character of
the agreement, and it would, indeed, be fallacious to argue that either the
entente or Grey’s diplomacy during the Moroccan crisis paved the way for
war with Germany in 1914.70
The dislocation of the European equilibrium and Germany’s growing
restlessness had an impact on Britain in an imperial context also. To a
large extent, this was the result of the Anglo-German naval race that was
fully under way since 1904/6 and which had implications for the balance
of power in Europe and the security of the empire.71 In addition, German
22 T.G. Otte
diplomacy created a nexus between the naval issue and colonial questions,
such as the Baghdad Railway project. Grey preferred to deal with these
problems discretely. The Wilhelmstrasse suggested a comprehensive settle-
ment of the naval race and the Middle Eastern railway. To some degree,
this was a not altogether incorrect interpretation by the Germans of the
evolving logic of Grey’s entente diplomacy. Crucially, however, the
German proposals envisaged a British neutrality pledge in the event of
a continental war. This linkage was unacceptable. The neutrality pledge
amounted to a form of carte blanche for Germany to provoke a contin-
ental war while Russia was still reeling from the aftershocks of 1905.
Exclusive cooperation with Germany over the Baghdad Railway, mean-
while, ran the risk of loosening the existing ties with France and heighten-
ing Russian security concerns along Russia’s southern frontiers. The end
result of all of this would have been the weakening of Britain’s much
improved international position in exchange for some degree of depen-
dence on Germany.72
Inevitably, much diplomatic energy was consumed by the Anglo-
German antagonism. Some aspects of Anglo-German rivalry before 1914
were clearly exaggerated. Yet, the notion that the challenge posed by the
Reich was something of an ‘invention of the German menace’ as a device
to ‘divert attention from the British Empire’s vulnerability and rivet it on
Germany’ is a perverted and narrow interpretation of the historical evid-
ence.73 If there was little concrete to fight over, there was nothing illusory
about the ultimate object of Tirpitz’s naval build-up and Berlin’s ambi-
tions to establish Germany as the dominant Power in Europe. The root
problem was rather that German diplomacy lacked clear strategic guid-
ance; and this made it erratic and difficult for the FO to ‘read’ accu-
rately.74 The mounting tensions with Germany were compounded by
strains in the relations with Russia. The 1907 accord had reduced some of
Britain’s most pressing problems in Central Asia. The friendly noises
emanating from the Russian foreign ministry, the Anglo-Russian conven-
tion failed to restrain the more aggressive designs of Russia’s agents in
Persia and Central Asia in the last few years before 1914. Much of the
deterioration in the relations with Russia in that period was caused by the
recrudescence of Russia’s military power after 1910. The impact of this on
Britain was twofold. In Europe, it heightened German security fears and
so increased the willingness of the ruling circles in Berlin to contemplate
military solution before Russia became too strong. In an imperial context,
Russian policy in the Near East and Central Asia became more restless.
Indeed, Russia’s occupation of Kashgar in July 1912 and increased
pressure on Mongolia seemed to suggest the likelihood of renewed
instability in Central Asia.75 Similarly, rumours of a possible Russo-German
rapprochement in 1913, St. Petersburg’s prolixity over Albanian independ-
ence in 1913–14 or its obstreperous position in the Spitzbergen negotia-
tions in the spring of 1914 were causes of further strains. By 1914, Russian
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 23
pressure was mounting on Persia, and an increasingly confident Russia
was constantly pushing the boundaries of the 1907 agreement.76 Anglo-
Russian relations were changing on the eve of the Great War. Grey and
the FO faced the fact that the Anglo-Russian convention required a major
revision; and the prospect of failure, followed by a re-emergence of the
pre-1907 antagonism with Russia, was very real. Britain’s difficulties with
Russia reflected the peculiar nature of British world power with its two
foci on Europe and on Asia. Russia affected both. In Europe, a strong
Russia was needed to balance a restless and potentially aggressive
Germany, but a revived Russian Empire also had the potential of threaten-
ing Britain’s Asian interests. In his dealings with Russia, in the words of Sir
Arthur Nicolson, the Permanent Under-Secretary, Grey, had to follow
a ‘policy of dancing on a tight rope’.77
The impact of the Russian and imperial factors on FO decision-making
during the July crisis of 1914 is a contentious point. Keith Wilson has
advanced the argument that the British decision to go to war was based on
an imperial set of priorities, that Britain went to war to protect her Asian
interests and that the perceived need to maintain good relations with
Russia was the determining consideration rather than concern about a
German threat to the balance of power in Europe. The implication is that
prior to 1914, Britain pursued some form of ‘appeasement’ of Russia and
that a major European war was a price well worth paying for the protec-
tion of Central Asian interests against a future Russian menace.78 This
argument is problematic on a number of counts, not least because there is
no clear evidence connecting Grey’s decision-making with such calcula-
tions. Wilson’s argument is based on the 23 July 1914 memorandum by
George Clerk, senior clerk of the Eastern department, on the difficult
state of Anglo-Russian relations. Clerk argued that good relations with
Russia were of paramount importance to Britain and that renewed Anglo-
Russian hostility might threaten vital imperial interests in Asia. According
Wilson’s interpretation, such imperial considerations must have been
background influences shaping Grey’s decision-making during the July
crisis.79 A closer examination of the departmental paper trail shows that,
in this particular case, Grey himself did not see the memorandum until a
fortnight after the expiry of Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, by which
time he minuted that Clerk’s proposals ‘must of course now be sus-
pended’.80
When placed in the wider context of late-nineteenth century Anglo-
Russian relations, Grey’s policy towards Russia was constant and consis-
tently even-handed. It was necessarily reactive, for Grey ‘could neither
compel Anglo-Russian relations to be cordial, nor force Russo-German
relations to be distant’.81 Whilst there is no doubt the Russian foreign min-
isters Aleksandr Pyotrovich Izvolsky and Sergei Dimitrevich Sazonov
attempted political blackmail during the Bosnian annexation crisis of
1908–9 and in 1914 by threatening the end of the 1907 convention, the
24 T.G. Otte
British government did not yield. Against advice by senior officials, Grey
refused definitively to bind Britain to Russia. His acceptance of the need to
renegotiate the Anglo-Russian convention was no indication of his aim of a
full alliance with St. Petersburg. This might appear ‘paradoxical’,82 but it
reflected the fact that by 1914 the 1907 settlement had turned out to be
little more than a ‘holding operation’ that had stabilised Anglo-Russian
relations in Central Asia. Whether a revised convention with Russia was
still in the realm of practical politics had war not broken out in 1914 is
speculative. What is certain is that British diplomats did anticipate the pos-
sible collapse of negotiations with Russia.83 Yet, when Germany decided
upon the ‘calculated risk’ of a continental war, European calculations
superseded considerations of imperial interests.

Notes
1 P.M. Thornton, Foreign Secretaries of the XIX. Century (3 vols, London, 2nd edn.
1883), vol. III, 407.
2 Cedric James Lowe, Salisbury and the Mediterranean, 1886–1896 (London, 1965).
Though pioneering in many respects this work is not without flaws. The prob-
lematic notion that Salisbury was somehow following a Palmerstonian tradition
apart, the wider significance of the Mediterranean periphery is not always fully
integrated with the wider constellation of the Great Powers.
3 Keith Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and Russia, 1894–1917
(Oxford, 1995).
4 For the emergence of this see E. Ingram, In Defence of British India: Great Britain
in the Middle East, 1775–1842 (London, 1984), though his argument of Britain
as a ‘dual monarchy’ seems far-fetched.
5 For this argument see Keith Neilson, ‘Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1914’
STICERD conference, who stresses the non-systemic aspects; also T. Otte,
Global Transformation: Britain, Great Power Politics and the China Question,
1894–1905 (forthcoming) which stresses the interaction between ‘systemic’ and
‘non-systemic’ factors.
6 For this consideration see my ‘ “It’s What Made Britain Great”: Reflections on
British Foreign Policy from Malplaquet to Maastricht’, in T. Otte (ed.), The
Makers of British Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher (Basingstoke and New York,
2002), 1–34.
7 C.J. Bartlett, ‘Statecraft, Power and Influence’, in C.J. Bartlett (ed.), Britain Pre-
eminent: Studies of British World Influence in the Nineteenth Century (London,
1969), 173–4.
8 This has not been fully appreciated by scholars of British foreign and imperial
policy. For the background see J.R. Vincent, The Formation of the British Liberal
Party, 1857–1868 (New York, 2nd edn. 1976), 246–50; H.C.G. Matthew, ‘Dis-
raeli, Gladstone, and the Politics of Mid-Victorian Budgets’, Historical Journal,
22 (1979): 615–43; H. Roseveare, The Treasury, 1660–1870: The Foundations of
Control (London, 1973), 104–6; M. Wright, Treasury Control of the Civil Service,
1854–1874 (Oxford, 1969).
9 C.J. Bartlett, ‘The Mid-Victorian Reappraisal of Naval Policy’, in K. Bourne and
D.C. Watt (eds), Studies in International History: Essays Presented to W. Norton Medli-
cott (London, 1967), 189–208; J.F. Beeler, ‘One-Power-Standard?: Great Britain
and the Balance of Naval Power, 1860–80’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 15 (1992):
548–52; D.M. Schurman, Imperial Defence, 1868–1887 (London, 2000).
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 25
10 Cf. K.A.P. Sandiford, Great Britain and the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1848–1864:
A Study in Diplomacy, Politics, and Public Opinion (Toronto, 1975).
11 W.E. Mosse, The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System, 1855–71: The Story of a Peace
Settlement (London, 1963). On the global nature of the Anglo-Russian struggle,
cf. also A. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy, 1853–6 (Manches-
ter, 1990), xvi–xxi, and 269–80.
12 G.J. Alder, British India’s Northern Frontier, 1865–95: A Study in Imperial Policy
(London, 1963), 38–57, 100–13 and 165–88.
13 W.E. Mosse, ‘The End of the Crimean System: England, Russia, and the Neu-
trality of the Black Sea, 1870–1’, Historical Journal, 4 (1961): 164–90.
14 W.N. Medlicott, The Congress of Berlin and After: A Diplomatic History of the Near
Eastern Settlement, 1878–80 (London, 2nd edn. 1963), 137–47; M. Swartz, The
Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone (London, 1985),
82–103; R. Millman, Britain and the Eastern Question, 1875–1878 (Oxford, 1979),
403–51; J. Charmley, Splendid Isolation?: Britain and the Balance of Power,
1874–1914 (London, 1999), 145–62.
15 M. Cowling, ‘Lytton, the Cabinet, and the Russians, August to November 1878’,
English Historical Review, 85 (1961): 59–79; and A.P. Thornton, ‘British Policy in
Persia, 1858–90 (I)’, ibid., 69 (1954): 569–72, for the Herat Convention.
16 R.L. Greaves, Persia and the Defence of India, 1884–92 (London, 1959), 70–120;
D.R. Gillard, ‘Salisbury and the Defence of India, 1885–1902’, in Bourne and
Watt (eds), Studies in International History: Essays Presented to W. Norton Medlicott,
here esp. 246–8.
17 Lowe, Salisbury and the Mediterranean, passim; W.N. Medlicott, ‘The Mediter-
ranean Agreements of 1887’, Slavonic Review, 5 (1926): 71–4.
18 T.G. Otte, ‘ “Floating Downstream”?: Lord Salisbury and British Foreign
Policy, 1878–1902’, in T.G. Otte (ed.), The Makers of British Foreign Policy,
112–15; K.M. Wilson, ‘Constantinople or Cairo: Lord Salisbury and the Parti-
tion of the Ottoman Empire, 1886–1897’, in K.M. Wilson, Empire and Conti-
nent: Studies in British Foreign Policy from the 1880s to the First World War (London,
1987), 1–30.
19 G.N. Sanderson, England, Europe and the Upper Nile, 1882–1899 (Edinburgh,
1965); A.S. Kanya-Forstner, ‘French Africa Policy and the Anglo-French Agree-
ment of 5 August 1890’, Historical Journal, 12 (1969): 628–50; D.R. Gillard, ‘Sal-
isbury’s Africa Policy and the Heligoland Offer of 1890’, English Historical
Review, 85 (1960): 631–53; C.J. Lowe, ‘Anglo-Italian Differences over East
Africa and Their Effects on the Mediterranean Entente’, ibid., 81 (1966):
319–30; M.P. Hornik, ‘The Anglo-Belgian Agreement of 12 May 1894’, ibid., 62
(1942): 233–43; A.J.P. Taylor, ‘Prelude to Fashoda: The Question of the Upper
Nile, 1894–5’, ibid., 65 (1950): 52–80.
20 Otte, ‘ “Floating Downstream”?’, 116–17; J.A.S. Grenville, ‘Gołuchowski,
Salisbury, and the Mediterranean Agreements, 1895–7’, Slavonic and East Euro-
pean Review, 36 (1958): esp. 353–5.
21 D.C.M. Platt, Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914
(Oxford, 1968), 20–2.
22 H.D. Traill, Central Government (London, 1881), 78–80.
23 Kimberley to Ripon (private), 6 Nov. 1893, Ripon Mss, British Library, Add.
Mss 43526.
24 Granville to Gladstone, 29 Oct. 1879, in A. Ramm (ed.), Gladstone–Granville Corre-
spondence, 1868–1876 (2 vols, London, 1952), vol. I, 351. For the above cf. N.S.
Johnson, ‘The Role of the Cabinet in the Making of Foreign Policy, 1885–1895’,
with special reference to Lord Salisbury’s second administration’ (D.Phil. thesis,
Oxford, 1970); V. Cromwell and Z.S. Steiner, ‘The FO before 1914: A Study in
Resistance’, in G. Sutherland (ed.), Studies in the Growth of Nineteenth Century
26 T.G. Otte
Government (London, 1972), 167–94; K. Robbins, ‘The Foreign Secretary, the
Cabinet, Parliament and the Parties’, in F.H. Hinsley (ed.), British Foreign Policy
under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977), 3–21; T.G. Otte, ‘Old Diplomacy:
Reflections on the FO before 1914’, in G. Johnson (ed.), The FO and British
Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (London, 2004), 31–52.
25 Otte, ibid., 38–9.
26 There is no proper study of career patterns in the British diplomatic service in
this period. A useful discussion of ambassadorial appointments and the influ-
ence of ambassadors is K. Neilson, ‘ “Only a d–d marionette”?: The Influence of
Ambassadors on British Foreign Policy’, in M.L. Dockrill and B.J.C. McKercher
(eds), Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy, 1890–1950
(Cambridge, 1996), 56–78.
27 E. Hertslet, FO List . . . for 1900 (London, 1900), 5–6; R.A. Jones, The Nineteenth
Century FO: An Administrative History (London, 1971), 81–2.
28 F.D. Munsell, The Unfortunate Duke: Henry Pelham Clinton, Fifth Duke of Newcastle,
1811–1864 (Columbia, MI, 1985), 244–5.
29 Russell to Newcastle, 7 Feb. 1861, and min. Palmerston, 3 Mar. 1861, in C.W.
Newbury (ed.), British Policy towards West Africa: Selected Documents, 1786–1874
(Oxford, 1965), nos V/18–19.
30 D.E. Lee, Great Britain and the Cyprus Convention (Cambridge, 1934), 75–7;
L.M. Penson, ‘The Foreign Policy of Lord Salisbury, 1878–80: The Problem of
the Ottoman Empire’, in A. Coville and H.W.V. Temperley (eds), Studies in
Anglo-French History (Cambridge, 1935), 125–42.
31 Sir Charles Dilke, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, was instrumental in forcing
the administration of Cyprus upon the Colonial Office in 1880, cf. FO List 1879
(London, 1879); A. Cecil, ‘The FO’, in A.W. Ward and G.P. Gooch (eds), The
Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919 (3 vols, Cambridge, 1921–3),
vol. III, 608. For the Zambezi territories, cf. R.V. Kubicek, The Administration of
Imperialism: Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office (Durham, NC, 1969), 26.
32 T.G. Otte, ‘ “Wee-ah-Wee”?: Britain at Weihaiwei, 1898–1930’, in G. Kennedy
(ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000: Influences and Actions
(London, 2005), 4–34.
33 R. Hyam, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial Office, 1905–1908: The Watershed of the
Empire-Commonwealth (London, 1968), 305–10.
34 There is still no proper modern biography of this important official, cf. R.B.
Mowat, The Life of Lord Pauncefote: First Ambassador to the US (London, 1929),
27–30; L. Wright, Julian Pauncefote and British Imperial Policy, 1855–1889
(Lanham, MD, 2002), 19–37.
35 Kubicek, Administration of Imperialism, 37–8. Another point of contact was of an
administrative nature. The 1905 Crowe–Hardinge reforms at the FO intro-
duced a number of innovations copied from the Colonial Office, including a
General Registry and the famous ‘minute sheets’ that cover the despatches
received, cf. Otte, ‘Old Diplomacy’, 36–8.
36 Lord G. Hamilton, Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections, 1868 to 1885
(London, 1917), 68–9.
37 Reminiscences of Lord Kilbracken, GCB (London, 1931), 160–1.
38 Copies of Indian correspondence and memoranda can be found in the corre-
spondence and papers of the St. Petersburg embassy archives, TNA (PRO),
F[oreign] O[ffice Paper] 181.
39 C.P. Skrine and P. Nightingale, Macartney at Kashgar: New Light on British, Chinese
and Russian Activities in Sinkiang, 1890–1918 (Hong Kong and Oxford, 1987).
40 Baring’s position in India, however, was not an official one, but connected to
his uncle’s elevation to the viceroyalty, cf. R. Owen, Lord Cromer: Victorian Impe-
rialist and Edwardian Proconsul (Oxford, 2004), 56–67.
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 27
41 There were also six unsalaried posts. The Colonial Office funded the consulate
on Tonga, while the Anglo-Egyptian administration of the Sudan paid for two
consular posts in Ethiopia. Chinde in Portuguese Africa was paid out of Nyasa-
land funds, cf. G.E.P. Hertslet (ed.), The FO List and Diplomatic and Consular
Year Book for 1914 (London, 1914), 30–52; also B.C. Busch, Britain and the
Persian Gulf, 1894–1914 (Berkeley, CA, 1967), 6–7 and 350–2.
42 A.P. Kaminsky, The India Office, 1880–1910 (Westport, CT, 1986), 109.
43 See also the argument developed by Paul M. Kennedy concerning the longer
term roots of ‘appeasement’ as a foreign policy strategy, Paul M. Kennedy,
Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870–1945: Eight Studies (London, 1984), 13–39.
44 Godley to Curzon (private), 8 Nov. 1901, Curzon Mss, British Library Oriental
and India Office Collection, Mss Eur.F.150. For the background see D.
McLean, Britain and Her Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire,
1890–1914 (London, 1979), 36.
45 J.V. Plass, England zwischen Russland und Deutschland, 1899–1907 (Hamburg,
1966), 45.
46 Selborne to Curzon, 24 Apr. 1903, as quoted in D. Dilks, Curzon in India (2 vols,
London, 1969), vol. I, 111; also Kaminsky, India Office, 110.
47 Cf. L. Atherton, Top Secret: An Interim Guide to Recent Releases of Intelligence Records
at the Public Record Office (London, s.a. [1993]); also L.P. Morris, ‘British Secret
Service Activity in Khorassan, 1887–1908’, Historical Journal, 27(1984): 657–75;
J. Ferris, ‘Before “Room 40”: The British Empire and Signals Intelligence,
1898–1914’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 12(1989): 431–55.
48 Cf. Ardagh to Sanderson, 8 Nov. 1900, and min. Sanderson, 9 Nov. 1900, HD
3/119.
49 Cf. T.G. Otte, ‘ “Not Proficient in Table-Thumping”: Sir Ernest Satow at
Peking, 1900–1906’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 13 (2002): 175.
50 C. Andrew, ‘Codebreakers and FOs: The French, British and American
Experience’, in C. Andrew and D. Dilks (eds), The Missing Dimension: Govern-
ments and Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (London, 1984), 33–53; C. Andrew,
‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy, 1900–1939’, in C. Andrew and J.
Noakes (eds), Intelligence and International Relations, 1900–1945 (Exeter, 1987),
9–28; also J.W.M. Chapman, ‘British Use of “Dirty Tricks” in External Policy
Prior to 1914’, War in History, 9 (2001): 60–81, though this contains a number of
factual errors. A useful biography along popular lines of the first head of SIS is
A. Judd, The Quest for ‘C’: Sir Mansfield Cumming and the Founding of the British
Secret Service (London, 1999).
51 Cf. mins Crowe, 29 Apr. 1909, FO 371/673/16182, and 12 Feb. 1912, FO
371/1374/25576; also T.G. Otte, ‘Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy: A
Cognitive Map’, in T.G. Otte and C.A. Pagedas (eds), Personalities, War and
Diplomacy: Essays in International History (London, 1995), 24.
52 Field Marshal Lord Roberts complained that ‘he had to do for himself what an
intelligence department ought to have done for him’, cf. N.H. Gibbs, The
Origins of Imperial Defence (Oxford, 1955), 8–9.
53 R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy,
1899–1915 (New Haven, CT, and London, 1993), 19–20; J. Ehrman, Cabinet
Government and War, 1890–1940 (Cambridge, 1958), 27–30.
54 J.P. Mackintosh, ‘The Role of the Committee of Imperial Defence before
1914’, English Historical Review, 77 (1962): 490–503; N. d’Ombrain, War
Machinery and High Policy: Defence Administration in Peacetime Britain, 1902–14
(London, 1973).
55 Tenterden to Thomson (secret), 20 Apr. 1880, HD 3/58. On the close contacts
with the FO, cf. Lord E. Gleichen, A Guardsman’s Memories: A Book of Recollec-
tions (London, 1932), 140–3 and 180.
28 T.G. Otte
56 J.A.S. Grenville, Lord Salisbury and Foreign Policy: The Close of the Nineteenth
Century (London, rev. edn. 1970 (pub.)), 24–54; P.T. Marsh, ‘Lord Salisbury
and the Ottoman Massacres’, Journal of British Studies, 9 (1972): 77–80.
57 Goschen to Devonshire, 6 Sept. 1895, as quoted in Z.S. Steiner, The FO and
Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge, 1969), 53.
58 Memo. Altham, ‘Military Needs of the Empire in a War with France and
Russia’, 10 Aug. 1901, WO 106/48/E3/2.
59 Memo. Bertie, 20 June 1901, and ‘Anglo-Japanese Agreement’, 20 July 1901,
FO 46/547; and memo. Bertie, 22 July 1901, FO 17/1507; cf. I.H. Nish, Anglo-
Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (Westport, CT,
repr. 1976), 154–6.
60 Between 1889 and 1904 production costs for capital ships doubled and those
for cruisers quadrupled, cf. J.T. Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance,
Technology, and British Naval Policy (London, 1993 (pb)), 18–20; K. Neilson,
‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1902–1914’.
61 Kerr to Selborne (secret), 2 Sept. 1901, in D.G. Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British
Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the Second Earl of Selborne, 1895–1910
(London, 1990), p. 123; memo. Selborne, ‘Balance of Power in the Far East’, 4
Sept. 1901, CAB 37/58/81. For the background and impact cf. Z.S. Steiner,
‘Great Britain and the Creation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance’, Journal of
Modern History, 31 (1959): 27–36; also K. Neilson, ‘ “Greatly Exaggerated”: The
Myth of the Decline of Great Britain before 1914’, International History Review,
13 (1991): 695–725.
62 For a fuller discussion of this dynamic cf. T.G. Otte, Global Transformation,
Chapter 6; also, albeit somewhat mechanistic in its analysis, A.L. Friedberg,
‘Britain Faces the Burdens of Empire: The Financial Crisis of 1901–5’, War &
Society, 5 (1987): 15–37.
63 J.A.S. Grenville, ‘Great Britain and the Isthmian Canal, 1898–1901’, American
Historical Review, 61(1955): 69.
64 For this argument cf. J.M. Goudswaard, Some Aspects of the End of Britain’s ‘Splen-
did Isolation’, 1898–1904 (Rotterdam, 1952), 92–3; M.E. Howard, The Continental
Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars
(Harmondsworth, Mdx, 1974 (pub.)), 92–3.
65 Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar, 223–6; I.H. Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance,
229–44; Otte, Global Transformation, Chapter 7.
66 P. Towle, ‘The Russo-Japanese War and the Defence of India’, Military Affairs,
44(1980): 114–15; useful, albeit somewhat rigid, K.M. Wilson, ‘The Anglo-
Japanese Alliance of August 1905 and the Defending of India: A Case of the
Worst Case Scenario’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21(1993):
324–56.
67 Lansdowne to Hardinge, 4 Sept. 1905, Hardinge Mss, Cambridge University
Library, vol. 7; cf. R.A. Esthus, Double Eagle and Rising Sun: The Russians and
Japanese at Portsmouth in 1905 (Durham, NC, 1986), 144–5.
68 Grey to Spring-Rice, 22 Dec. 1905, as quoted in K. Neilson, ‘ “Control the Whirl-
wind”: Sir Edward Grey as Foreign secretary, 1906–1916’, in T.G. Otte (ed.), The
Makers of British Foreign Policy, 130.
69 For the background, cf. B.J. Williams, ‘The Strategic Background to the Anglo-
Russian Convention of August 1907’, Historical Journal, 9 (1966): 360–73;
Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar, 267–88; also S.E. Koss, John Morley at the India
Office (New Haven, CT, 1969), 111–17. For the military and naval talks with the
Japanese, cf. Nish, Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 353–8.
70 T.G. Otte, ‘The Elusive Balance: British Foreign Policy and the French Entente
before the First World War’, in A. Sharp and G. Stone (eds), Anglo-French
Relations in the Twentieth Century: Rivalry and Cooperation (London, 2000), 11–35.
 The Foreign Office, 1856–1914 29
The extent to which Grey deviated from Lansdowne’s seemingly more even-
handed approach remains the subject of some debate. For a critical view of
Grey, cf. J. Charmley, Splendid Isolation?: Britain and the Balance of Power
(London, 1999), 332; K.M. Wilson, The Policy of the Entente: Essays on the
Determinants of British Foreign Policy, 1904–1914 (Cambridge, 1985), 86–99. For
interpretations stressing the continuity between Lansdowne and Grey, cf. Z.S.
Steiner and K. Neilson, Britain and the Origins of the First World War (Basingstoke
and New York, 2nd edn. 2003), 35–43; T.G. Otte, ‘ “Almost a Law of Nature”?:
Sir Edward Grey, the FO, and the Balance of Power in Europe, 1905–12’, in
B.J.C. McKercher and E. Goldstein (eds), Power and Stability: British Foreign
Policy, 1865–1965 (London, 2003), esp. 80–88.
71 P.M. Kennedy, The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860–1914 (London,
1990), 444–7; J. Steinberg, ‘The Novelle of 1908: Necessities and Choices in the
Anglo-German Naval Arms Race’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th
ser., 21 (1971): 25–43; A.J. Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The RN in
the Fisher Era, vol. I, The Road to War (London, 1961), 105–85.
72 Neilson, ‘Control the Whirlwind’, 130–1; Otte, ‘Almost a Law of Nature’,
99–102; Steiner and Neilson, Britain and the Origins, 114–16.
73 The argument developed by Wilson, Policy of the Ententes, 106–8 and 115–18,
and unreflectedly taken over by N. Ferguson, The Pity of War (London, 1998),
55–81.
74 Steiner and Neilson, Britain and the Origins, 83.
75 J. Siegel, Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia,
1907–1914 (London, 2002), 175–96.
76 D. McLean, Britain and Her Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire,
1890–1914 (London, 1979), 111–16.
77 Nicolson to Buchanan (private), 21 Apr. 1914, as quoted in Steiner and
Neilson, Britain and the Origins, 99. The state of Anglo-Russian relations in 1914
is comprehensively treated in Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar, 333–40.
78 Wilson, Policy of the Entente, 74–84, 95–9 and 115–20; Wilson, ‘Imperial Interests
in the British Decision for War, 1914: The Defence of India in Central Asia’,
Review of International Studies, 10 (1984): 189–203; and Wilson, (ed.), British
Foreign Secretaries and Foreign Policy: From Crimean War to First World War
(London, 1987), 172–97. This seems to be Wilson’s idée fixe, for he has recently
charged the Aberdeen coalition of 1853 with deciding on war in the East
(against Russia) in order to avoid confronting France in the West (over
Belgium), cf. Wilson, Problems and Possibilities: Exercises in Statesmanship,
1814–1918 (Stroud, 2003), 69.
79 K.M. Wilson, ‘The Struggle for Persia: Sir G. Clerk’s Memorandum of 21 [recte
23] July 1914 on Anglo-Russian Relations in Persia’, Proceedings of the 1988 Inter-
national Conference on Middle Eastern Studies (Leeds, 1988), 290–334, and Wilson,
‘Britain’ in Wilson, (ed.), Decisions for War, 1914 (London, 1995), here 184–7.
80 Min. Grey, 18 Aug. 1914, on memo. Clerk, ‘Anglo-Russian Relations in Persia’,
23 July 1914, FO 371/2076/33484.
81 Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar, 289–90.
82 Ibid., 340.
83 Otte, ‘Old Diplomacy’, 42–3.
2 The Foreign Office and the
defence of empire, 1919–1939
Keith Neilson

At the end of the First World War, four European empires – the
Austro–Hungarian, the German, the Ottoman and the Russian – collapsed.
At the same time, Japan and the United States emerged as major players
on the world stage. To complicate matters further, ideologies hostile to
Western democracy – successively Bolshevism, Fascism and Naziism –
sprang up, each asserting that it held the keys to the future. Equally
important, the verities of pre-war international relations were under siege.
Alliances, secret (or ‘old’) diplomacy and arms races were held to be
responsible for the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Finally, the principle of
national self-determination was held to be an essential element of peace.1
There was even an attack on the concept of empire itself, although most
in the British establishment believed that the time for imperial retreat
could be safely put off into the indefinite future.2 British Imperial Defence
would have to be formulated in an environment completely different from
that of 1914.3
The role of Foreign Office (FO) in determining British strategic foreign
policy had also altered. Before the war, the FO had been a central compo-
nent in the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), created in 1902 as a
nexus between the various departments of state concerned with defence
policy.4 And, with respect to foreign policy itself, the FO was supreme prior
to 1914, despite efforts by groups – both parliamentary and extra-parliament-
ary – to push the policy in various directions. After the war, the situation had
changed. The machinery of government had altered.5 The increase of prime
ministerial power was reflected in the growth of the Cabinet secretariat and
the creation of Lloyd George’s ‘garden suburb’, where voices advocating
alternate foreign policies would have an opportunity to oppose the FO.6
Further, other departments of state – particularly, the Treasury – then
claimed a greater voice in foreign-policy issues, particularly those that
involved finances.7 Seriously though, the FO’s own authority was diminished
by attacks made on it during the war, although efforts were made under
Curzon and, later, Austen Chamberlain to restore its pre-war lustre.8
All these considered, determining the shape of the new world order was
the first order of business for the FO after the First World War. Much of
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 31
this took place at the Paris Peace Conference.9 Here, British policy makers
made a number of decisions that would affect imperial defence through-
out the interwar era. While the various peace treaties were each shaped by
particular concerns, there were a number of verities that affected them all.
The first was that there should be no more war. This was to be achieved by
several means, including the liberation of national minorities and disarma-
ment. Those disputes that still existed were to be resolved by the means
provided by the League of Nations, itself a product of the peace.10
This was the ideal.11 However, the circumstances of 1919 and the
utopian aims of the peace conference were not always compatible. One
dilemma for the FO was how to reconcile its professed support for national
minorities (and their aspirations for independence) with the needs of
imperial defence. This was particularly acute with respect to the border-
lands of the former Tsarist state.12 Some of these problems were not new.
In addition to pre-1914 concerns about the Russian threat to India, during
the war itself the British had spent a good deal of time ensuring that the
‘jewel of empire’ was secure against all comers.13 This concern was tied to
the need to guarantee that the post-war settlement would be favourable to
the empire.14 Such considerations had been particularly pressing during
the bleak months of 1917 and 1918 when Russia’s collapse had made it
seem possible that a military stalemate, if not outright defeat, was the likely
outcome of the First World War and that Germany might gain territories in
the East that would offset any possible losses she might incur in the West.15
While this did not come to pass, even after the guns stopped firing the
British remained very much concerned about the fate of those former
Tsarist territories that bordered the British Empire.16
This involved two things: whether such territories would be re-absorbed
into a new Soviet state, allowing for a recrudescence of the nineteenth
century Russian physical threat to the empire and whether Soviet Russia,
as a purveyor of dangerous thoughts, would be successful in undermining
the British Empire by means of ideological subversion. Under Lord
Curzon, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1919 to
1924, Britain attempted to create a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevik
expansion.17 In Europe, this took the form of supporting the independ-
ence of the Baltic States, Poland and Eastern Europe generally. In the
Baltic, the British wished for stability, a situation in which the Baltic and
the Scandinavian states would ensure their own security by means of coop-
eration, all the while allowing British sea power to operate freely in the
Baltic itself.18 In Eastern Europe, where British power could not act,
London promoted security through loans and economic penetration.19
More important to the empire, and crucial to imperial defence, was the
fate of the southern tier of states in the Caucasus and Central Asia.20 Here,
Curzon wished to pursue a forward policy, achieving the long-term goal of
defending India by creating a British crescent stretching from India
through the Middle East to Egypt. This was not a simple task.21 There were
32 K. Neilson
enormous demands on the British army, which had to provide the forces
necessary to stabilize the region. In 1920, there were British troops in
Germany, Poland, Flanders, France and southern Russia, in addition to
those in Ireland and Britain itself. The result was that Curzon’s grand
vision found itself incapable of realization. Instead, he was forced to
pursue a number of separate policies.22 Afghanistan’s defeat in the Indo-
Afghan war of 1919 restored Kabul as a buffer state between a recrudescent
Russian power and the British Empire. A similar policy was followed with
respect to Persia, where the British encouraged Reza Khan’s efforts to
create stability rather than attempt to maintain their wartime intervention
there.23 Support for the nascent states in the Caucasus was abandoned; the
decision being made that the British could not provide them with ade-
quate material means to ensure their independence, and that, in any case,
their existence was not central to imperial security.24 Instead, the cordon
sanitaire against Bolshevism was to be supplemented by diplomacy. In 1921,
the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement was signed in an attempt to restore Euro-
pean economic stability and aid British post-war reconstruction.25
This did not bring an end to concerns about India.26 Late in 1926,
Soviet Russia and Afghanistan began a border quarrel over the island of
Urta Tagai, situated in the Oxus. The British had headed off an actual
conflict by persuading the Amir of Afghanistan to refer the matter to
a commission, but the question of whether the British should and how
they could defend the North-West frontier remained. There were divided
counsels. Men like Birkenhead, the Secretary of State for India, pointed
out that Britain lacked any military means of defending Afghanistan.
Instead, he argued that Britain must ensure that Moscow realized that any
Soviet threat to the North-West frontier would mean war with Britain. The
Chiefs of Staff (COS) echoed the bleak military assessment but were
deeply suspicious of Soviet motives, a position shared by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Winston Churchill.
The FO, for its part, preferred a policy of ‘aloofness’ towards Soviet
Russia.27 Any clash or break with Soviet Russia would threaten both the
Locarno accords that Austen Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, had concluded in 1925 and Britain’s position in China. For
the FO, the Russian threat to British security could be met in two ways. First,
Anglo-Japanese relations should be improved as much as possible in order
that Tokyo could help buttress the British position in China. Second,
Britain should build on Locarno and thus make Europe secure and pros-
perous so that Soviet subversion would find no fertile ground there.
Nonetheless, the COS continued their examination of the security of
the Afghan frontier. The government of India favoured caution. They
contended that building rail lines into Afghanistan, the COS’s preferred
response to possible Soviet aggression, was not practical politics and that
to inform Moscow and Kabul that an attack on Afghanistan would mean
war would permit Kabul to adopt a policy of provocation towards the
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 33
Soviets. This, in turn, would mean, in the words of the Foreign Secretary
to the Government of India, Sir Denys Bray, that Britain ‘would have sur-
rendered the issues of peace or war with Russia to the incalculable actions
of an unscrupulous, reckless barbarian’.28 For the Government of India,
diplomacy, not armed force, was the way to maintain India’s defences.
This line of argument was still favoured at the FO. But, the govern-
ment’s discontent with Soviet Russia, which had simmered throughout
1926 and early 1927, boiled over. The result was the Arcos raid and the
breaking of diplomatic relations with Russia. The immediate result, after
mutual recriminations, was a reduction in Anglo-Soviet tension, while the
purge of communists in the Nationalist government in China lessened
British fears for that region of the world. However, with the cessation of
formal relations, British diplomacy could no longer act directly in
Moscow. However, the Soviet threat remained. In July 1927, Chamberlain
told the CID that the British army should be organized on the basis that
its most likely field of endeavour would be on the North-West frontier.
Diplomacy was to focus on maintaining good relations with Afghanistan,
while the Birkenhead Committee, set up to examine the entire issue of
the defence of that country, emphasized the need for plans to be made to
defend the region, while a second sub-committee dealing with the secur-
ity of the Persian Gulf reached similar conclusions.29
While the Bolshevik threat to Afghanistan and India went into remis-
sion in 1928, it emerged again in 1932. This resulted from an inquiry by
the Afghans as to what response the British would make should Soviet
Russia threaten Kabul.30 British policy remained the same: any Soviet
attack on Afghanistan would be a casus belli; however, it also remained
imprudent to let the Afghans know this definitely. Instead, Kabul was
informed that action might be taken through the agency of the League,
and, if this proved ineffectual, British aid would be forthcoming. However,
the nature of Soviet action required to trigger such a response was left
deliberately vague. The FO was convinced by this time that Soviet Russia
would not risk taking action against Afghanistan due to the Soviet need to
contend with a belligerent Japan.
This interaction between Great Power relations and the empire also was
noticeably during the deliberations of the Defence Requirements Sub-
Committee (DRC), set up in November 1933 to consider the deficiencies
in Britain’s defences.31 In these discussions, the defence of India was made
the third priority, after the need to guard against Japan and Germany.32 In
fact, it was simply assumed in the DRC’s report that if Britain were pre-
pared to deal with the first two contingencies, then the wherewithal to
defend India could be found. This remained the position until 1938, when
once again the question of defending India was raised.33 However,
throughout this period the FO (if not the India Office) remained con-
vinced that Soviet Russia was unlikely (as a result of facing both a German
and Japanese threat) to contemplate aggression. Thus, the defence of
34 K. Neilson
India remained a low priority, and the inherent strength of the Indian
army itself was felt likely sufficient to deal with any issues.34
The defence of India and Afghanistan was not the only issue that
derived from the collapse of the Russian and Ottoman Empires. We have
seen that the Caucasus were not deemed essential to imperial defence,
but the same could not be said with respect to the Middle East.35 For one
thing, the Suez Canal still remained the ‘jugular vein of empire’, although
the British attempted to establish alternative routes to the empire beyond
Suez via railways.36 When the British granted Egypt ‘independence’ in
1922, the issue of defence was left to be decided by a later treaty, as there
was strong opposition to putting such a vital matter in the hands of the
Egyptians.37 The negotiation of this treaty was a difficult matter. The FO’s
desire to finalize the matter foundered, initially, on the nationalist opposi-
tion of Egypt’s ruling Wafd party and, then, in 1933, on the objections of
the British service chiefs.38 Italian actions in Abyssinia in 1935 broke this
deadlock and acted as a catalyst, raising both British concerns about impe-
rial lines of communication and Egyptian fears about their own security.
The result was the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and
Alliance in 1936, under the terms of which British forces remained
(indeed were augmented) in Egypt. From this time, until the Italian dec-
laration of war in 1940, the FO had to deal with a number of often contra-
dictory issues. On the one hand, it supported the Anglo-Egyptian
Agreement as an important element for maintaining Britain’s strategic
position; on the other, it wished to find a modus vivendi with Italy and so
avoid the possibility of facing three enemies – Germany, Japan and Italy –
simultaneously.39 Equally, it was concerned that Egypt might be unwilling
to invoke the emergency clauses that would permit the Suez Canal
Defence Plan to be initiated. Finally, the FO was troubled by the fact that
sending the Mediterranean fleet to the Far East would fatally compromise
Britain’s position in the Middle East and Balkans generally.40
The other problem in the Middle East was the fate of Turkey itself.
British promises of Turkish territory to Italy in the Treaty of London were
incompatible with the aspirations of the Turkish nationalism under the
leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The Treaty of Sèvres, which put the Straits
under international control and provided for both Greek and Italian
acquisitions in Asia Minor, thus would have to be reified by force of arms.41
However, as usual, the British lacked troops, and Greek forces became
involved in the attempt to enforce the provisions of Sèvres. The Kemalist
movement seemed to tie many of Britain’s enemies together.42 Kept
informed by its intelligence services of behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings,
the British feared that the Turkish nationalist movement contained a
number of elements that threatened the empire: the most frightening
aspects of the Pan-Turanian movement and, lurking in the shadows behind
it, both the red hand of Bolshevism and Japanese efforts to create an anti-
Western linkage between Tokyo and militant Islam.
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 35
Thus, when the Greeks were crushed by the Turks in August 1922, the
British attempted to establish a united front against the latter. However,
Curzon soon found that France was unwilling to help, and the govern-
ment’s approach to the Dominions was bungled.43 Thus, the so-called
Chanak crisis ended in disaster for the British, one that was instrumental
in the revolt that removed Lloyd George from the prime minister’s office.
Curzon and the FO managed to rescue Britain from this embarrassing
fiasco. At the conference held at Lausanne at the end of 1922 and in early
1923 to resolve the issue, the foreign secretary managed to secure Britain’s
concerns with respect to imperial defence by maintaining the freedom of
the Straits, with international commissions to administer demilitarised
zones at them.44 What remained was to delineate the border between Iraq
and Turkey, the sticking point being the possession of Mosul, which the
British wished to retain because of its strategic significance for the produc-
tion of oil for the Royal Navy. This was initially referred to the League for
arbitration (another instance of the changed environment for the making
of British strategic foreign policy after 1919), and the result was finally
confirmed by the Anglo-Turkish Treaty of 5 June 1926. From that time
until the approach of war in 1939, Anglo-Turkish relations remained
cordial, the only issue of strategic significance being the revision of the
Straits agreement in 1936.45 In the years just before the war, both sides
moved to make relations even closer in order to check the threat that,
first, Italy and then Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia posed to Turkey and
Britain’s position in the Middle East.46
While the defence of India and British interests in the Middle East
occupied much time and thought, by far the greatest difficulty for imper-
ial defence after the First World War was to protect British interests in the
Far East. This was due to the fact that the Far East involved a greater
number of issues than did any other area. In that region, formulating
British strategic foreign policy involved dealing with the complicated
tangle of Great Power relations among Britain, Japan, China, Soviet Russia
and the United States. And, as imperial defence in the Pacific centred on
naval issues, it also was intimately involved with the twin issues of naval
arms control and disarmament. Various British departments of state
ranged on opposing sides, with the Admiralty, the War Office and the
Treasury all possessed of differing (and contradictory) views as to how best
to ensure British security. The FO’s task was to establish a policy that
resolved all these issues.
The fundamental starting point for imperial defence in the Far East
had been established in 1902 with the signing of the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance.47 On the British side, the motive behind the alliance had been
to check Russian depredations in China.48 However, with St. Petersburg’s
defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent conclusion of the
Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907, much of the advantage accruing to
Britain by virtue of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance vanished with the end
36 K. Neilson
of the Russian threat.49 In fact, by the time of the Imperial Conference
of 1911, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, had to reassure
the delegates that the real advantage of the arrangement with Tokyo
was that it ensured that Japan would not threaten the empire.50 The
possibility of a Japanese threat became more pronounced during the
First World War when Japan took advantage of Britain’s European pre-
occupations to attempt to force China to accept the Twenty-One
Demands of 1915.51
As the war came to an end, and as the date for the expiry of the Anglo-
Japanese Alliance drew closer, the FO had to ponder whether a renewal of
the agreement still served British strategic needs.52 While Japan had proved
a useful ally, particularly in the naval war, Japan’s aggressive actions on the
Asian continent were clearly a menace to Britain’s imperial possessions.53
However, as the Admiralty pointed out at the end of the war, to abrogate
the alliance would mean that Britain faced a period of naval inferiority in
the Far East. For the FO, the position was even more complicated. Amer-
ican–Japanese relations had deteriorated during the war, and the Ameri-
cans believed that the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was aimed at them. This,
combined with American unhappiness over the British blockade during the
First World War, raised the spectre of an Anglo-American naval race unless
Washington could be convinced that no sinister Anglo-Japanese naval
combination existed.54 The ideal solution would be an Anglo-American
agreement in the Far East, but this was not a likely prospect. The FO thus
had to balance good Anglo-American relations against the Far Eastern
security provided by the ongoing relationship with Japan.
A committee was set up under Curzon in September 1920 to consider
all these matters.55 The result was a call for the perfection of an Anglo-
American–Japanese agreement to replace the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
But, this could not be considered in isolation. At the same time, the
impending Imperial Conference raised the issue of how to defend the Far
East.56 The definitive arguments were made by the Admiralty and sup-
ported by the Lord President of the Council, Arthur Balfour, a former
prime minister and foreign secretary who had been instrumental in the
very creation of the CID.57 It was concluded that, regardless of the fate of
the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, it was necessary to build a major naval base at
Singapore in order to ensure the security of the Far Eastern portion of the
empire. This was the origin of the so-called ‘Singapore strategy’, the basis
of all interwar thinking concerning the defence of the Far East.58 It is
important to note, however, that the Treasury opposed the Singapore
project. They contended that Japanese aggression was unlikely, that the
Singapore base was too expensive and that the one-power standard against
Tokyo (the basis of Admiralty building programmes) was both unneces-
sary and imprecise in definition.
It was now up to the FO to ensure that all these considerations did
not adversely affect British policy generally. This was achieved at the
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 37
Washington Naval Conference.59 Here, the British delegation, under
Balfour’s leadership, achieved marvels. The Four Power Treaty and the
Nine Power Treaty replaced the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and guaranteed
China’s sovereignty and integrity.60 The naval portions of the conference
established fixed ratios between the principal naval powers with respect
to capital ships. As long as the treaties remained in place and were
observed, Britain’s Far Eastern empire remained secure, a naval building
race against the United States had been avoided, and a reasonable
degree of harmony among the Great Powers with respect to East Asia
seemed likely.61 Diplomacy had come to the aid of imperial defence.
Of course, such a situation was only temporary and was dependent on
circumstances. The Treasury and the Admiralty continued to quarrel over
the costs of building Singapore and fleet construction, while Soviet Russia
became a threat to the British position in China.62 Under Chamberlain,
the FO decided that it wished to pursue a new policy in the Far East to
counter this trend. Beginning in 1925, the FO repeatedly asserted that no
conflict with Japan was likely.63 In fact, by mid-1926, the FO asserted that
British imperial defence policy in the Far East should be ‘based on the
assumption that Russia is the enemy and not Japan’.64 The FO wished to
couple this with a changed policy towards China, a policy that was more in
line with post-1918 thinking about empire and was aimed at creating a
prosperous unified China that would continue its lucrative trade with
Britain without the need for the unequal treaties that had been concluded
in the nineteenth century.65
This had a direct impact on imperial defence. The assertion of good
relations with Japan meant that the Admiralty would no longer find an ally
in the FO against the Treasury’s calls for economy. If Japan were no longer
a potential opponent, against whom was the Admiralty’s building pro-
gramme directed? And, what reason was there for the Singapore naval
base? However, the new policy in China also had the potential to compli-
cate Britain’s relations with the Great Powers: a policy of cooperation with
China meant that Britain would automatically be ranged on the opposite
side if Japan were to pursue an adventurist policy against the mainland.
Further, although less so after the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-
shek had purged itself of its communist elements in 1927, support for the
Nationalists created yet another opportunity for Anglo-Soviet clashes. And,
it also underlined departmental differences: the War Office saw Japan as
an ally against Soviet actions in China, whereas the FO wished to combat
Soviet incursions without Japanese aid.
A new China policy did not bring an end to the issues of arms control
and the extent of naval building programmes. General arms control was a
difficult matter for the FO. While the Treaty of Versailles had inherently
promised that disarmament would be pursued, the practical achievement
of it was arduous.66 It was difficult to find agreement on technical matters,
and each of the Powers wished to exempt from limitation those weapons
38 K. Neilson
that it deemed necessary for its own needs. The British were no exception.
Since air power promised the maintenance of order in Britain’s colonial
possessions on the cheap, the British were loathe to limit its use in the
colonial sphere (although quite willing to restrict or abolish any air force
that threatened Britain itself).67
However, the Admiralty’s realization that it could no longer use the
Japanese bogey to extract funds for its building programmes meant that it
became a supporter of naval arms control as a means to maintain its pre-
dominant position at sea: if the Royal Navy (RN) could no longer build as
it pleased, then it was best to limit the building programmes of other
countries. This dovetailed nicely with the FO’s desire to improve Anglo-
American relations. While the 1927 Geneva conference failed to find a
solution to the differing needs of London and Washington with respect to
cruisers – themselves a vital component for maintaining the sea lanes so
necessary for imperial defence – this did not bring an end to the attempt
to regularise naval construction.68 This was renewed in 1930 at the
London Naval Conference.
Here, the Labour Prime minister, J. Ramsay Macdonald, working in
tandem with the FO, set the parameters for the naval aspects of imperial
defence in the Far East.69 The FO’s desire to improve Anglo-American
relations overrode the Admiralty’s desire for maintaining a fleet of 70
cruisers, while Macdonald gave short shrift to the Treasury’s attempts to
cut naval budgets even further. With Anglo-American naval relations set
on an even keel and with Anglo-Japanese relations seemingly good, it
appeared as if the FO had established the diplomatic requirements for
ensuring British imperial defence east of Suez. This proved not to be
the case.
In the autumn of 1931, the Japanese began an aggressive campaign
against China, beginning a phase that would not end until 1945. This cam-
paign soon spread and threatened the British position at Shanghai.70 The
British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, found himself in a dilemma. He
wished to get the Japanese to moderate their actions, but he also wished to
pursue this under the aegis of the League so as to avoid focussing Japan-
ese resentment on Britain. This resulted in his being unwilling to follow
the anti-Japanese line proposed by the American Secretary of State, Henry
L. Stimson. While Simon believed that if Britain were to adopt the Amer-
ican position, Washington would leave it to the British to take any con-
crete action and do nothing itself, for his part Stimson asserted that he
had been let down by the British foreign secretary. This created a situation
that bedevilled any Anglo-American cooperation in the Far East for the
rest of the decade. There were elements on either side of the Atlantic that
distrusted the other, something that the British, and particularly the FO,
worked hard to overcome.71 Here, Singapore became an important
symbol, as the FO endeavoured to persuade the Americans that its
defence was as much an American as a British interest.72
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 39
The emergence of the Japanese threat also was the motivating force
behind the calling of the DRC. At that body, the FO sent mixed signals:
the bulk of the Office believed that Japan remained the principal threat to
British interests, while Sir Robert Vansittart, the Permanent Undersecre-
tary at the Office, insisted that Germany was the ‘ultimate’ enemy.73
Nonetheless, the DRC’s report reflected the FO’s priorities, with Japan
being designated as the first contingency against which Britain must
guard. At this point, the Treasury’s long-standing arguments in favour of
improving Anglo-Japanese relations in order to reduce costs again took
the field. These arguments were championed by Neville Chamberlain, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who disliked the Americans and believed
that British imperial interests in the Far East could be best safeguarded by
a return to the Anglo-Japanese amity of the period from 1902 to 1921.74
Chamberlain’s arguments impressed neither the FO nor the Fighting Ser-
vices (including the Royal Air Force (RAF), despite its benefitting from
Chamberlain’s preference for creating sufficient air power to deter any
possible British opponent), but his political clout was sufficient that the
priorities of the DRC were skewed away from naval power and imperial
defence against Japan.
In these circumstances, the FO had to fend off the Treasury’s attempts
to shape British policy in the Far East, while instead attempting to provide
for imperial defence in that region by means of diplomacy.75 Its preferred
means of doing so was to improve Anglo-American relations and to
attempt to plant in Japanese minds the idea that Tokyo faced a united
Anglo-American front.76 This, the so-called ‘no-bloc’ strategy, also utilized
the ongoing tension between Japan and Soviet Russia to create the impres-
sion that there was a shadowy European coalition designed to thwart
Japan’s expansion on the Asian continent.77 Additionally, the FO worked
hard to help the Admiralty to maintain the precarious naval balance that
had emerged at London. This was less than successful. The London Naval
Conference of 1935 scarcely got off the ground, as the Japanese refused to
contemplate any restriction on their building programmes. However, the
FO’s adroit handling of the preliminaries to the conference helped to
convince the Americans that Britain was neither pro-Japanese nor
attempting to go back on the naval parity that Washington had gained
in 1930.78
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 was another attempt to
make bricks without straw.79 In limiting German naval power to 35 per
cent of the RN’s level, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was part and
parcel of the Admiralty’s effort to maintain the shaky naval balance estab-
lished at the London Conference in 1930. As such, it was supported by
some at the FO, particularly Robert Craigie, who had been the FO’s chief
naval negotiator since the late 1920s. However, others felt that concluding
the Anglo-German agreement was bad policy due to its implications for
Britain’s relations with the other Great Powers. This was due to the fact
40 K. Neilson
that signing it both destroyed the Anglo-French agreement of 3 February,
which called for arms control agreements to be made only in the context
of a general settlement with Germany, and encouraged the Italians in
their desire to attack Abyssinia.80 Equally, it annoyed the Soviets, who lost
all faith in any British commitment to a general settlement. This later had
its impact on naval arms control with all that implied for imperial defence.
In 1936, when the British attempted to conclude a naval agreement with
Moscow, the Soviets proved quite unwilling to shape their building pro-
gramme to suit British interests.81 The Russians were only reluctantly per-
suaded to limit their building to ships that would neither undermine the
basis of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement nor inspire an increase in
Japanese naval construction, each of which would have ruined the Admi-
ralty’s careful efforts to maintain a naval balance. Using diplomacy as a
substitute for armed might in imperial defence was clearly something that
needed to be handled with care.
The defence of the Far East became even more complicated in the late
1930s.82 Italy’s growing hostility in the Mediterranean precipitated a crisis in
imperial defence as the country imperilled Britain’s lines of communication
to the Far East.83 Faced with the ‘triple threat’ of Germany, Italy and Japan,
the British turned once again to diplomacy. This was a failure. Neville Cham-
berlain’s naive attempt to wean Italy away from its hostile policy towards
Britain was unsuccessful.84 With Italy’s being unable to be appeased, this
turned the FO’s attention back to the interaction between naval power and
diplomacy.85 Opinions were divided. Sir Robert Craigie, then Ambassador to
Japan, wanted the Admiralty to send a substantial fleet to the Far East to
shore up the British imperial position. At the FO, some agreed, arguing that
abandoning the Mediterranean was more sensible than leaving the Far East
to Japan’s tender mercies. However, leaving the Mediterranean had its
drawbacks. France would be disheartened by a British abandonment of the
Middle Sea, while Egypt would see this as a betrayal of the 1936 treaty, and
Turkey needed to be guaranteed against Italy if Britain wished to persuade
Ankara to become the hub of a Balkan combination against the Axis
powers. Others at the FO wished to continue the ‘no bloc’ policy and to
utilize Japan’s concerns about Soviet Russia and the latent power of the
United States to safeguard Britain’s interests in the Far East.
The signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the outbreak of war made this
latter preference the only practicable policy. With the RN unable to go to
the Far East due to the situation in Europe, the defence of Britain’s
Empire in the Far East was dependent on the kindness of strangers. With
respect to the United States, this meant that British diplomacy had to
ensure that Washington continued to believe that Britain did not contem-
plate any action in the Far East that would either violate the Nine Power
Treaty or appear to suggest that Britain was doing a deal with Japan at the
expense of China. With respect to Soviet Russia, British policy had to walk
a fine line. It was all to the good that Soviet–Japanese tensions should
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 41
remain high, but any Anglo-Japanese rapprochement to encourage such
a state (as the Japanese persisted in suggesting) was forbidden by the
simultaneous need not to offend Washington. And, the Soviet attack on
Finland in late 1939 brought Anglo-Soviet relations to a crisis in which it
was contemplated declaring war on Moscow.86
The fall of France and the Italian declaration of war in June 1940 made
the situation in the Far East even more difficult. With the Japanese moving
into French Indo-China, the security of British lines of communication to
the Far East becoming less reliable than ever, and America’s apparent
unwillingness to take any concrete actions against Japan, the FO contem-
plated making a general settlement with Japan.87 But this alternative would
have involved abandoning China, and both forfeiting any American help
that might be forthcoming in the Far East and lessening American support
for Britain in the European conflict. If diplomacy were to continue to sub-
stitute for military power in imperial defence, then Britain must appear to
have no truck with aggressors. This circumstance remained until Pearl
Harbor converted the ‘no bloc’ policy into the Grand Alliance.
A consideration of the FO and imperial defence in the period between
the wars makes evident a number of things. It underlines the need for a
broader conceptual basis for the study of imperial defence. A recent com-
mentator has pointed out the need for ‘reintegrating the sub-disciplines’
of imperial history generally; this point is particularly apt when consider-
ing imperial defence.88 For the latter to be understood properly, it needs
to be contemplated in the context of British strategic foreign policy. This
latter term is a complex one, but involves considering how the British
used all their resources – economic, financial, military – within the con-
fines of foreign policy narrowly defined to achieve their aims. And, it is
equally important to note that such policy was made within a particular
intellectual framework, one that limited what policies could have been
both contemplated and pursued. Thus, those who wish to write about
imperial defence must place their study not only in the context of empire,
but also in the context of British foreign policy generally. Further, they
need to take into account specialist work dealing with economics, finances
and military and naval matters, all the while being aware of the limiting
intellectual constraints on policy. Such general observations have a
number of ramifications for research. One is the need for more time in
the archives and the requirement to consult a wider range of primary
materials than is usual. Another is the necessity to read more widely in the
realm of the history of ideas. Only when this is done can imperial defence,
properly considered, be understood.

Notes
1 Kenneth J. Calder, Britain and the Origins of the New Europe (Cambridge, 1976);
Hugh Seton-Watson and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Europe
(London, 1981).
42 K. Neilson
2 John Darwin, ‘Imperialism in Decline? Tendencies in British Imperial Policy
between the Wars’, Historical Journal, 23 (1980): 657–79; P.J. Marshall, ‘Imperial
Britain’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 23 (1995): 395–426.
3 For an elaboration of these ideas, see Keith Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and
the Collapse of the Versailles Settlement, 1919–1939 (Cambridge, 2005). For an
excellent study that analyzes the changed circumstances with regard to stra-
tegic foreign policy after the war, see John Robert Ferris, Men, Money, and
Diplomacy. The Evolution of British Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY,
1989).
4 Nicholas d’Ombrain, War Machinery and High Policy. Defence administration in
peacetime Britain 1902–1914 (Oxford, 1973) and F.A. Johnson, Defence by
Committee: The British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885–1959 (Oxford, 1960).
5 Kathleen Burk, ed., War and the State. The Transformation of British Government,
1914–1919 (London, 1982).
6 John F. Naylor, A Man and An Institution. Sir Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet
Secretariat and the custody of Cabinet secrecy (Cambridge, 1984); John Turner,
‘The Formation of Lloyd George’s “Garden Suburb”: “Fabian-Like Milnerite
Penetration”?’, Historical Journal, 20 (1977): 165–84; ibid., Lloyd George’s
Secretariat (Cambridge, 1980).
7 George Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy 1906–1959 (Oxford, 2000),
170–4, 212–16.
8 Roberta M. Warman, ‘The Erosion of FO Influence in the Making of Foreign
Policy, 1916–1918’, Historical Journal, 15 (1972): 133–59; Alan J. Sharp, ‘The FO
in Eclipse 1919–22’, History, 61 (1976): 198–218; G.H. Bennett, ‘Lloyd George,
Curzon and the Control of British Foreign Policy 1919–22’, Australian Journal
of Politics and History, 45 (1999): 467–82; Gaynor Johnson, ‘Curzon, Lloyd
George and the Control of British Foreign Policy, 1919–22: A Reassessment’,
Diplomacy & Statecraft, 11 (2000): 49–71; B.J.C. McKercher, ‘Old Diplomacy and
New: The FO and Foreign Policy, 1919–1939’, in Michael Dockrill and Brian
McKercher, eds, Diplomacy and World Power: Studies in British Foreign Policy,
1890–1950 (Cambridge, 1996).
9 For British policy at Paris, see Erik Goldstein, Winning the Peace. British Diplo-
matic Strategy, Peace Planning, and the Paris Peace Conference 1916–1920 (Oxford,
1991). Two recent collections introduce the literature, set the context and add
to Goldstein: Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser,
eds, The Treaty of Versailles. A Reassessment after 75 Years (Washington, DC and
Cambridge, 1998) and Michael Dockrill and John Fisher, eds, The Paris Peace
Conference, 1919. Peace without Victory? (Basingstoke and New York, 2001).
10 On the League, and the differing British views of what it meant, see G.
Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations (London, 1972),
F.S. Northedge, The League of Nations. Its Life and Times: 1920–1946 (Leicester,
1986); Peter J. Yearwood, ‘ “Read Securities against New Wars”: Official British
Thinking and the Origins of the League of Nations, 1914–19’, Diplomacy &
Statecraft, 9 (1998): 83–109; George Egerton, ‘Collective Security as Political
Myth: Liberal Internationalism and the League of Nations in Politics and
History’, International History Review, 5 (1983): 496–524; ibid., ‘Conservative
Internationalism: British Approaches to International Organization and the
Creation of the League of Nations’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 5 (1994): 1–20.
For an excellent interpretative essay, see Zara Steiner, ‘The League of Nations
and the Quest for Security’, in R. Ahmann, A.M. Birke and M. Howard, eds,
The Quest for Stability. Problems of West European Security 1918–1957 (Oxford,
1993), 35–70.
11 For some early efforts by the League and the British attitude towards its func-
tioning, see Peter J. Yearwood, ‘ “Consistently with Honour”: Great Britain, the
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 43
League of Nations and the Corfu Crisis of 1923’, Journal of Contemporary History,
21 (1986): 559–79; P.J. Beck, ‘From the Geneva Protocol to the Greco-Bulgar-
ian dispute: the development of the Baldwin government’s policy towards the
peacekeeping role of the League of Nations, 1924–1925’, British Journal of Inter-
national Studies, 6 (1980): 52–68; David Carlton, ‘Great Britain and the League
Council Crisis of 1926’, Historical Journal, 11 (1968): 345–64.
12 Keith Neilson, ‘ “That elusive entity British policy in Russia”: the Impact of
Russia on British Policy at the Paris Peace Conference’, in Dockrill and Fisher,
eds, Paris Peace Conference, 67–103.
13 For the pre-war concern, in addition to the material cited above in the chapter
by Thomas Otte, see R.A. Johnson, ‘ “Russians at the Gates of India”? Planning
the Defence of India, 1885–1900’, Journal of Military History, 67 (2003):
697–743. For the matter during the First World War, Keith Neilson, ‘ “For
diplomatic, economic, strategic and telegraphic reasons: British imperial
defence, the Middle East and India, 1914–18’, in Greg Kennedy and Keith
Neilson, eds, Far-Flung Lines. Essays on Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald
Mackenzie Schurman (London and Portland, OR, 1997), 103–23; Benjamin
Schwartz, ‘Divided Attention: Britain’s Perception of a German Threat to Her
Eastern Position in 1918’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28 (1993): 103–22.
14 V.H. Rothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914–1918 (Oxford, 1971)
and Lorna Jaffe, The Decision to Disarm Germany (London, 1985).
15 Brock Millman, Pessimism and British War Policy 1916–1918 (London, and Port-
land, OR, 2001), 112–54; 199–240; ibid., ‘A Counsel of Despair: British Strategy
and War Aims, 1917–18’, Journal of Contemporary History, 36 (2001): 241–70.
16 For British policy, generally towards Soviet Russia in the early period, see
R.H. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations 1917–1921 (3 vols; Princeton, NJ,
1961–1973). For parallel studies of Soviet policy that puts British actions in the
Soviet perspective, see two monographs by Richard K. Debo, Revolution and
Survival. The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia 1917–18 (Toronto, ON, and Buffalo,
NY, 1979) and Survival and Consolidation. The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia
1918–1921 (Montreal, CA, and Kingston, ON, 1992).
17 See G.H. Bennett, British Foreign Policy during the Curzon Period, 1919–24
(Basingstoke and New York, 1995), 41–60.
18 For Poland, see K. Lundgreen-Nielsen, The Polish Problem at the Paris Peace
Conference. A Study in the Politics of the Great Powers and the Poles, 1918–1920
(Odense, 1979) and Edgar Anderson, ‘The British Policy Toward the Baltic
States 1918–1920’, Journal of Central European Affairs, 19 (1959): 276–89. For Scan-
dinavia and the Baltic States, the articles by Patrick Salmon, ‘British Security
Interests in Scandinavia and the Baltic 1918–39’ and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen,
‘Bridges and Barrier, Pawns and Actors. The Baltic States in East-West Relations
in the 1920s’ all in John Hiden and Aleksandr Loit, eds, The Baltic in International
Relations between the Two World Wars (Stockholm, 1988), 113–36, 431–42; Markku
Ruotsila, ‘The Churchill-Mannerheim Collaboration in the Russian Intervention,
1919–1920’, Slavonic and East European Review, 80 (2002): 1–20. Essential are
Olavi Hovi, The Baltic Area in British Policy 1918–1921. Vol. I: From the Compiègne
Armistice to the Implementation of the Versailles Treaty (Helsinki, 1980) and the work
of Ea Sundbäck: ‘ “A Convenient Buffer between Scandinavia and Russia” Great
Britain, Scandinavia and the Birth of Finland after the First World War’,
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 42 (1994): 355–75 and Finland in British Baltic
Policy. British political and economic interests regarding Finland in the Aftermath of the
First World War, 1918–1925 (Helsinki, 2001).
19 For an introduction, see Gábor Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe 1918–1931
(Oxford, 1999); for some specifics, see Gerald Protheroe, ‘Sir George Clerk
and the Struggle for British Influence in Central Europe’, Diplomacy &
44 K. Neilson
Statecraft, 12 2001: 39–64; Gyorgy Peter, ‘Central Bank Diplomacy: Montagu
Norman and Central Europe’s Monetary Reconstruction after World War I’,
Contemporary European History, 3 (1992): 233–58, Anne Orde, ‘Baring Brothers,
the Bank of England, the British Government and the Czechoslovak State Loan
of 1922’, English Historical Review, 106 (1991): 27–40.
20 John Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East 1916–19 (London,
and Portland, OR, 1999) sets the wider context; see also ibid., ‘ “On The Glacis
of India”: Lord Curzon and British Policy in the Caucasus, 1919’, Diplomacy &
Statecraft, 8 (1997): 50–82; David Kelly, ‘End of the Great Game: British Inter-
vention in Russia’s Southern Borderlands and the Soviet Response’, Journal of
Slavic Military Studies, 13 (2000): 84–100; L.P. Morris, ‘British Secret Missions in
Turkestan, 1918–19’, Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977): 363–79.
21 What follows is based on Keith Jeffery, ‘Sir Henry Wilson and the Defence of
the British Empire, 1918–22’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,
5 (1977): 270–94; ibid., The British Army and the Crisis of Empire 1918–1922
(Manchester, 1984).
22 Bennett, British Foreign Policy, 60–75.
23 Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia 1918–1925 (London, and Portland,
OR, 1990), 157–200. For the earlier policy in Persia, see Brock Millman, ‘The
Problem with Generals: Military Observers and the Origins of the Intervention
in Russia and Persia, 1917–18’, Journal of Contemporary History, 33 (1998):
291–320.
24 See Manoug J. Somakian, Empires in Conflict. Armenia and the Great Powers
1895–1920 (London and New York, 1995). The British did continue to attempt
to preserve trade with the area, but this was ended when it was re-absorbed by
the Bolsheviks; see Dennis Ogden, ‘Britain and Soviet Georgia, 1921–22’,
Journal of Contemporary History, 23 (1988): 245–58.
25 M.V. Glenny, ‘The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, March 1921’, Journal of
Contemporary History, 5 (1970): 63–82. For the difficulties involved, see the
account of the Genoa Conference in Anne Orde, British Policy and European
Reconstruction after the First World War (Cambridge, 1990), 194–207.
26 What follows, except where otherwise noted, is informed by Orest Babij, ‘The
Making of Imperial Defence Policy in Britain, 1926–1934’, unpublished DPhil
thesis, Oxford, 2002, pp. 25–66 and Keith Neilson, ‘ “Pursued by a Bear”:
British Estimates of Soviet Military Strength and Anglo-Soviet Relations,
1922–1939’, Canadian Journal of History, 27 (1993): 194–206.
27 Richard S. Grayson, Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe. British
Foreign Policy 1924–29 (London, and Portland, OR, 1997), 253–58.
28 Minutes, 223rd meeting of the CID, 17 March 1927, Cab[inet Office] 2/5.
29 Uriel Dann, ‘British Persian Gulf Concepts in the Light of Emerging National-
ism in the Late 1920s’, in Uriel Dann, ed., The Great Powers in the Middle East
1919–1939 (New York and London, 1988), 50–68.
30 Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, chapter 1.
31 For the DRC and its context, see Keith Neilson, ‘The Defence Requirements
Sub-Committee, British Strategic Foreign Policy, Neville Chamberlain and the
Path to Appeasement’, English Historical Review, 118 (2003): 651–84.
32 Committee of Imperial Defence. Defence Requirements Sub-Committee
Report’, DRC 14, Hankey, Chatfield, Ellington, Fisher, Montgomery-Massing-
berd and Vansittart, 28 Feb. 1934, Cab 16/109.
33 Milan Hauner, ‘The Soviet Threat to Afghanistan and India 1938–1940’,
Modern Asian Studies, 15 (1982): 287–309.
34 For Indian strength, see Pradeep Barua, ‘Strategies and Doctrines of Imperial
Defence: Britain and India, 1919–45’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth
History, 25 (1997): 240–66. This runs counter to the commonly held belief that
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 45
India was a drag on British defence, for which see Michael Howard, The Contin-
ental Commitment: The Dilemma for British Defence Policy in the Two World Wars
(London, 1972) and Brian Bond, British Military Policy Between the Two World
Wars (Oxford, 1980), 267–70.
35 For the context, see John Darwin, ‘An Undeclared Empire: The British in the
Middle East, 1918–39’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 27
(1999): 159–76.
36 Steven Morewood, ‘Protecting the Jugular Vein of Empire: The Suez Canal in
British Defence Strategy, 1919–1941’, War and Society, 10, 1 (1992), pp. 81–107;
Keith Neilson, ‘The Baghdad to Haifa Railway: the Culmination of Railway
Planning for Imperial Defence East of Suez’ in Thomas Otte and Keith
Neilson, eds, The Path of Empire: Railways in International Politics, 1860–1943
(London, forthcoming).
37 For British policy towards Egypt, see John Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle
East. Imperial policy in the aftermath of war 1918–1922 (London and Basingstoke,
1981); ibid., ‘An Undeclared Empire: The British in the Middle East, 1918–39’,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 27, 2 (1999), pp. 159–76; Gabriel
R. Warburg, ‘Sudan, Egypt and Britain, 1919–1924’, in Dann, ed., Great Powers
in the Middle East, pp. 71–90.
38 Steven Morewood, ‘Appeasement from Strength: The Making of the 1936
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship and Alliance’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 7, 3
(1996), pp. 530–62.
39 For this, see Steven Morewood, ‘Anglo-Italian Rivalry in the Mediterranean and
Middle East, 1935–1940’, in Robert Boyce and Esmonde M. Robertson, eds,
Paths to War. New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War (London, 1989),
pp. 167–98; ibid., The British Defence of Egypt 1935–1940. Conflict and Crisis in the
Eastern Mediterranean (London and New York, 2005).
40 For analysis of all these problems, see David Omissi, ‘The Mediterranean and
the Middle East in British Global Strategy, 1935–39’, Michael J. Cohen, ‘British
Strategy in the Middle East in the Wake of the Abyssinian Crisis, 1936–39 and
Paul Harris, ‘Egypt: Defence Plans’, all in Michael J. Cohen and Martin Kolin-
sky, eds, Britain and the Middle East in the 1930s (London, 1993), pp. 3–20,
21–40 and 61–78 respectively. Also important is Lawrence Pratt, East of Malta,
West of Suez: Britain’s Mediterranean Crisis, 1936–1939 (Cambridge, 1975).
41 Bennett, British Foreign Policy, pp. 76–94.
42 John R. Ferris, ‘ “Far Too Dangerous a Gamble”? British Intelligence and Policy
during the Chanak Crisis, September-October 1922’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14,
2 (2003), 139–84; A.L. Macfie, ‘British Intelligence and the Turkish National
Movement, 1919–22’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37, 1 (2001), 27–46; ibid., ‘British
Views of the Turkish National Movement in Anatolia, 1919–22’, Middle Eastern
Studies, 38, 3 (2002), 27–46; John Fisher, ‘The Interdepartmental Committee on
Eastern Unrest and British Responses to Bolshevik and other intrigues against
the Empire in the 1920s’, Journal of Asian History, 34, 1 (2000), pp. 1–34, and
Selçuk Esenbel, ‘Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Trans-
national Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945’, American Historical Review,
109, 4 (2004), pp. 1140–70.
43 D. Walder, The Chanak Affair (London, 1969); Philip G. Wigley, Canada and the
Transition to Commonwealth. British-Canadian Relations 1917–1926 (Cambridge,
1977), pp. 160–72; Michael L. Dockrill and J. Douglas Goold, Peace without
Promise. Britain and the Peace Conferences 1919–23 (London, 1981), pp. 226–35.
44 Dockrill and Goold, Peace without Promise, pp. 236–52; Bennett, British Foreign
Policy, pp. 89–94.
45 For this, see Brock Millman, The Ill-Made Alliance. Anglo-Turkish Relations
1939–1940 (Montreal and Kingston, ON, 1998), pp. 69–85.
46 K. Neilson
46 Ibid., pp. 162–293.
47 Ian Nish, The Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires
1894–1907 (London, 1966) remains the best study. Also important is ibid.,
‘Origins of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In the Shadow of the Dreibund’, in
Phillips Payson O’Brien, ed., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 (London
and New York, 2004), pp. 8–25.
48 Keith Neilson, ‘The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and British strategic foreign
policy, 1902–1914’, in O’Brien, ed., Anglo-Japanese Alliance, pp. 48–63.
49 Keith Neilson, Britain and the Last Tsar. British Policy and Russia, 1894–1917
(Oxford, 1995).
50 Robert Joseph Gowen, ‘British Legerdemain at the 1911 Imperial Conference:
The Dominions, Defense Planning, and the Renewal of the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance’, Journal of Modern History, 52, 3 (1980), pp. 385–413.
51 I.H. Nish, ‘Japan and China, 1914–1916’, in F.H. Hinsley, ed., British Foreign
Policy under Sir Edward Grey (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 452–65; ibid., Alliance in
Decline. A Study in Anglo-Japanese Relations 1908–23 (London, 1972), pp.
115–262; Robert Joseph Gowen, ‘Great Britain and the Twenty-One Demands
of 1915: Cooperation versus Effacement’, Journal of Modern History, 43, 1
(1971), pp. 76–106; Peter Lowe, Great Britain and Japan 1911–1915: a study of
British far eastern policy (London, 1969); ibid., ‘The British Empire and the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance 1911–1915’, History, 54, 1969, pp. 212–25.
52 Keith Neilson, ‘ “Unbroken Thread”: Japan, Maritime Power and British Impe-
rial Defence, 1920–32’, in Greg Kennedy, ed., British Naval Strategy East of Suez,
1900–2000. Influences and actions (London and New York, 2005), pp. 62–89;
John Fisher, ‘ “Backing the Wrong Horse”: Japan in British Middle Eastern
Policy 1914–18’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 21, 2 (1998), pp. 60–74.
53 On Japan in the naval war, J. Charles Schencking, ‘Navalism, naval expansion
and war. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Japanese Navy’, in O’Brien, ed.,
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 122–39; Timothy D. Saxon, ‘Anglo-Japanese Naval Coop-
eration, 1914–1918’, Naval War College Review, 53, 1 (2000), pp. 62–92. For the
broader aspects, V.H. Rothwell, ‘The British Government and Japanese Military
Assistance 1914–1918’, History, 56 (1971), pp. 35–45 and Yoichi Hirama, ‘The
Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the First World War’, in Ian Gow, Yoichi Hirama
and John Chapman, eds, The History of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600–2000.
Volume III: The Military Dimension (Basingstoke and New York, 2003), pp.
51–70.
54 J. Kenneth McDonald, ‘Lloyd George and the Search for a Postwar Naval
Policy, 1919’, in A.J.P. Taylor, ed., Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London, 1971),
pp. 191–222.
55 Nish, Alliance in Decline, pp. 310–13.
56 See Michael G. Fry, Illusions of Security. North Atlantic Diplomacy 1918–22
(Toronto, ON, and Buffalo, NY, 1972), pp. 121–53.
57 For Balfour’s thinking, Jason Tomes, Balfour and Foreign Policy: The International
Thought of a Conservative Statesman (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 238–52.
58 There is a large body of work on the Singapore strategy. Two reviews summa-
rize much of the literature: Malcolm H. Murfett, ‘Living in the Past: A Critical
Re-examination of the Singapore Naval Strategy, 1918–1941’, War and Society,
11, 1 (1993), pp. 73–103 and ibid., ‘Reflections on an Enduring Theme: The
“Singapore Strategy” at Sixty’, in Brian Farrell and Sandy Hunter, eds, Sixty
Years On. The Fall of Singapore Revisited (Singapore, 2002), pp. 3–28. In addi-
tion, there are some articles that throw light on the topic: Galen Roger
Perras, ‘ “Our Position in the Far East would be Stronger without this Unsatis-
factory Commitment”: Britain and the Reinforcement of Hong Kong, 1941’,
Canadian Journal of History, 30, 2 (1995), pp. 231–59; Ian Cowman, ‘Defence
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 47
of the Malay Barrier? The Place of the Philippines in Admiralty Naval War
Planning, 1925–1941’, War in History, 3, 4 (1996), pp. 398–417; ibid., ‘Main
Fleet to Singapore? Churchill, the Admiralty, and Force Z’, Journal of Strategic
Studies, 18, 1 (1995), pp. 79–93; Christopher Bell, ‘ “Our Most Exposed
Outpost”: Hong Kong and British Far Eastern Strategy, 1921–1941’, Journal of
Military History, 60, 1 (1996), pp. 61–88 and, most recently, ibid., ‘The “Singa-
pore Strategy” and the Deterrence of Japan: Winston Churchill, the Admiralty
and the Dispatch of Force Z’ English Historical Review, 116, 467 (2001), pp.
604–34. There is a useful account in Malcolm H. Murfett, John N. Miksic,
Brian P. Farrell, Chiang Ming Shun, Between Two Ocean: A Military History of
Singapore from First Settlement to Final British Withdrawal (Oxford, 1999), pp.
145–74. In addition, Christopher Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy
between the Wars (London, 2000) and Ong Chit Chung, Operation Matador.
Britain’s War Plans against the Japanese 1918–1941 (Singapore, 1997), put the
subject into context.
59 The best introduction to the Washington Conference is the issue of Diplomacy
and Statecraft, 4, 3 (1993) edited by Erik Goldstein and John Maurer, which is
devoted to the topic. For Canada, see Fry, Illusions of Security, pp. 154–86.
60 Nish, Alliance in Decline, pp. 368–82.
61 J. Kenneth McDonald, ‘The Washington Conference and the Naval Balance of
Power, 1921–2’, in John B. Hattendorf and Robert S. Jordan, eds, Maritime
Strategy and the Balance of Power. Britain and America in the Twentieth Century
(London, 1989), pp. 189–213.
62 The Treasury was unable to control cost until the late 1920s; see John Ferris,
‘Treasury Control, the Ten Year Rule and British Service Policies, 1919–1924’,
Historical Journal, 30 (1987), pp. 359–83. For the Soviet threat, see Babij, ‘Impe-
rial Defence Policy’, pp. 37–59; Antony Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese
Challenge in Asia, 1914–1941 (Basingstoke and New York, 2002), pp. 49–69.
63 Neilson, ‘Unbroken Thread’, pp. 73–5.
64 Foreign Relations in Relations to Russia and Japan’, CID 710-B, Tyrrell (PUS),
27 July 1926, Cab 4/15.
65 Edmund S.K. Fung, ‘The Sino-British Rapprochement, 1927–1931’, Modern
Asian Studies, 17, 1 (1983), pp. 79–105; ibid., The Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat:
Britain’s South China Policy, 1924–1931 (Oxford, 1991).
66 Dick Richardson, The Evolution of British Disarmament Policy in the 1920s
(London and New York, 1989) is the best study, although rather partisan.
67 David Omissi, ‘Technology and Repression: Air Control in Palestine 1922–36’,
Journal of Strategic Studies, 13, 4 (1990), 41–63; ibid., Air Power and Colonial
Control: The RAF 1919–1939 (Manchester, 1990); Charles Townshend, ‘Civil-
ization and “Frightfulness”: Air Control in the Middle East Between the Wars’,
in Chris Wrigley, ed., War Diplomacy and Politics. Essays in Honour of A.J.P. Taylor
(London, 1986), pp. 142–62. More generally, see Philip Towle, Philip, ‘British
Security and Disarmament Policy in Europe in the 1920s’, in R. Ahmann, A.M.
Birke and M. Howard, eds, The Quest for Stability. Problems of West European Secur-
ity 1918–1957 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 127–53.
68 For the Geneva Conference, see Tadashi Kuramatsu, ‘The Geneva Naval Con-
ference of 1927: The British Preparation for the Conference, December 1926
to June 1927’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 19 (1996), pp. 104–21; ibid., ‘Viscount
Cecil, Winston Churchill and the Geneva Naval Conference of 1927: Si vis
pacem para pacem vs si vis pacem para bellum’, in T.G. Otte and Constantine A.
Pagedas, eds, Personalities, War and Diplomacy: Essays in International History
(London, 1997), pp. 105–27; Babij, ‘Imperial Defence Policy’, pp. 70–83.
69 Orest Babij, ‘The Second Labour Government and British Maritime Security,
1929–1931’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6, 3 (1995), pp. 645–71; Orest Babij, ‘The
48 K. Neilson
RN and the Defence of the British Empire, 1928–1934’, in Neilson and
Kennedy, eds, Far-Flung Lines, pp. 171–89.
70 Christopher Thorne, ‘The Shanghai Crisis of 1932: The Basis of British Policy’,
American Historical Review, 75, 6 (1975), pp. 1616–39; ibid., The Limits of Foreign
Policy: The West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931–33 (New York, 1973)
and Ian Nish, Japan’s Struggle with Internationalism: Japan, China and the League of
Nations, 1931–33 (London, 1993) set the situation and the British response.
71 The effort to do so is the theme of Greg Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic
Relations and the Far East 1933–1939 (London, 2002).
72 Greg Kennedy, ‘Symbol of Imperial Defence: The Role of Singapore in British
and American Far Eastern Strategic Relations, 1933–1941’, in Farrell and
Hunter, eds, Sixty Years On, pp. 42–67.
73 Neilson, ‘Defence Requirements Sub-Committee’, pp. 665–9.
74 Greg Kennedy, ‘ “Rat in Power”: Neville Chamberlain and the Creation of
British Foreign Policy, 1931–1939’, in T.G. Otte, ed., The Makers of British
Foreign Policy: From Pitt to Thatcher (Basingstoke and New York, 2002), pp.
173–95; ibid., ‘Neville Chamberlain and Strategic Relations with the US during
his Chancellorship’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 13 (2002), pp. 95–120.
75 Gill Bennett, ‘British Policy in the Far East 1933–1936: Treasury and FO’,
Modern Asian Studies, 26 (1992), pp. 545–68; V.H. Rothwell, ‘The Mission of Sir
Leith-Ross to the Far East, 1935–1936’, Historical Journal, 18 (1975), pp. 147–69;
Peter Neville, ‘Lord Vansittart, Sir Walford Selby and the Debate about Treas-
ury Interference in the Conduct of British Foreign Policy in the 1930s’, Journal
of Contemporary History, 36, 4 (2001), pp. 623–33.
76 See Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic Relations; see also, ibid., ‘What Worth the
Americans? The British Strategic Foreign Policy-Making Elite’s View of Amer-
ican Maritime Power in the Far East, 1933–1941’, in Kennedy, ed., British Naval
Strategy, pp. 90–117.
77 Greg Kennedy, ‘1935: A Snapshot of British Imperial Defence in the Far East’,
in Neilson and Kennedy, eds, Far-Flung Lines, pp. 190–216.
78 Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic Relations, pp. 121–210 makes this point
decisively.
79 Clare M. Scammell, ‘The RN and the Strategic Origins of the Anglo-German
Naval Agreement of 1935’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 20, 2 (1997), pp. 92–118;
Joseph A. Maiolo, ‘The Admiralty and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of
18 June 1935’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 10, 1 (1999), pp. 87–126 and ibid., The
RN and Nazi Germany, 1933–39. A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the
Second World War (London, 1998).
80 D.C. Watt, ‘The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An Interim Judg-
ment’, Journal of Modern History, 28, 2 (1956), pp. 168–71; Hines H. Hall III,
‘The Foreign Policy-Making Process in Britain, 1934–1935, and the Origins of
the Anglo-German Naval Agreement’, Historical Journal, 19, 2 (1976), pp.
477–99; Reynolds M. Salerno, ‘Multilateral Strategy and Diplomacy: The Anglo-
German Naval Agreement and the Mediterranean Crisis, 1935–1936’, Journal of
Strategic Studies, 17, 2 (1994), pp. 39–78.
81 Greg Kennedy, ‘Becoming Dependent on the Kindness of Strangers: British
Strategic Foreign Policy, Naval Arms Limitation and the Soviet Factor:
1935–1937’, War in History, 11, 1 (2004), pp. 79–105; David K. Varey, ‘The Poli-
tics of Naval Aid: The FO, the Admiralty, and Anglo-Soviet Technical Coopera-
tion, 1936–37’, D & S, 14, 4 (2003), 50–68.
82 For British attempts to obscure what this meant for Imperial defence, see
Rainer Tamchina, ‘In Search of Common Causes: The Imperial Conference of
1937’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1, 1 (1972), pp. 79–106.
83 For the crisis, see Reynolds M. Salerno, Vital Crossroads. Mediterranean Origins of
 The Foreign Office, 1919–1939 49
the Second World War, 1935–1940 (Ithaca, NY and London, 2002), pp. 10–39;
Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez; Robert Mallett, The Italian Navy and Fascist Expan-
sionism 1935–1940 (London, and Portland, OR, 1998).
84 See the articles by William C. Mills, ‘The Chamberlain-Grandi Conversations of
July-August 1937 and the Appeasement of Italy’, International History Review, 19,
3 (1997), 594–619; ‘The Nyon Conference: Neville Chamberlain, Anthony
Eden, and the Appeasement of Italy in 1937’, International History Review, 15, 1
(1993), 1–22, and ‘Sir Joseph Ball, Adrian Dingli, and Neville Chamberlain’s
“Secret Channel” to Italy’, International History Review, 24, 2 (2002), 278–317 for
the nature and extent of Chamberlain’s gullibility.
85 Keith Neilson, ‘Defence and Diplomacy: The British FO and Singapore,
1939–1940’, Twentieth Century British History, 14, 2 (2003), pp. 138–64.
86 Michael Carley, ‘ “A Situation of Delicacy and Danger”: Anglo-Soviet Relations,
August 1939-March 1940’, Contemporary European History, 8 (1999), pp. 175–208;
Patrick R. Osborn, Operation Pike: Britain versus the Soviet Union, 1939–1941
(Westport, CT, 2000), pp. 1–50.
87 John E. Dreifort, ‘Japan’s Advance into Indochina, 1940: The French
Response’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 13 (1983), pp. 279–95; Nicholas
Tarling, ‘The British and the First Japanese Move into Indo-China’, Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies, 21 (1990), pp. 35–65; ibid., Britain, Southeast Asia and the
Onset of the Pacific War (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 123–92; Antony Best, Britain,
Japan and Pearl Harbor. Avoiding war in East Asia, 1936–41 (London and New
York), pp. 112–17.
88 A.G. Hopkins, ‘Back to the Future: From National History to Imperial History’,
Past and Present, 164 (1999), pp. 198–243, here, p. 242.
3 The Foreign Office and defence
of the empire
John Kent

The role of the Foreign Office (FO) in military matters of imperial

defence has long been a grey and neglected area. The fact that ‘imperial’
can be interpreted in a number of ways with regard to the use of military
forces is part of the explanation. It also reflects the fact that in the early
twentieth century, imperial defence worked on the assumption that
Britain would have the resources to enable her empire to be defended.
This was particularly so when the Royal Navy (RN) was still a global force
of major significance even when no longer at a level superior to its two
nearest challengers. With the approach of the Second World War, the
policy assumptions of civilian planners could no longer depend on being
able to provide what the empire in its various far-flung components might
actually need for defence. Hard choices therefore loomed large but
nowhere larger than in the interwar debates on the appeasement of Japan
and Germany.
They also reflected the difficulty of determining what the empire sym-
bolised for British greatness and prestige as a still important global power
and how this might be realised or represented in the imperial mind, mili-
tary or civilian. The rise of Germany and Japan also began the debate
which was to continue for over 30 years as to whether Britain should give
priority to the demands of the empire over the alleged military require-
ments of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or continental
defence. As nuclear weapons became important strategic considerations,
the tension between foreign policy makers and those with military prior-
ities over the relation of geopolitical foreign policy needs and its effect on
strategic priorities did not decrease. Moreover, it should not be assumed
that military men did not have a geopolitical or even purely political vision
of the British Empire; this, whilst it might have reflected imperial service
in the distant lands of the Middle East or the Indian subcontinent, was not
averse to having the political or power political needs of the imperial state
dictate the military strategy of the British armed forces. Nor that imperial
defence after the Second World War would depend on the operational
needs arising from the empire or the defence of the British Isles. From
the time of the first conflicts over the continental commitment, the needs
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 51
of imperial defence did not initially dictate foreign policy but opposed it;
it was only in the 1950s that an agreed global strategy, followed for polit-
ical reasons, led to alleged military needs justifying the policies maintain-
ing the status and (prestige) of an imperial, non-European or global role
for Britain.
The growing problems with imperial defence and the inability to fight
the three powers of Germany, Japan and Italy in three different theatres
resulted in the loss, albeit temporary, of many of Britain’s Southeast Asian
territories. The whole issue of imperial defence, defined in terms of stra-
tegic planning for defending British territory in a global conflict, was tied
into political conceptions of Britain’s global role. As capabilities declined,
the symbolism associated with a far-flung presence outside the European
continent after the Second World War increased in importance. Imperial
defence, defined as the strategy dictating the deployment of forces to
protect the territories of the Commonwealth/Empire, came to be mean-
ingless as in a global war in different theatres Britain could not provide
the military resources. Imperial defence, defined in terms of the deploy-
ment of forces to quell rebellions or disturbances within parts of the
empire, was a very different story that will not be dealt with here.
A number of issues arose from the dramatic effect on the empire of the
Second World War even though old conceptions of Britain’s imperial role
remained. The loss of India was one such issue. But arguably, India had
been replaced by the Middle East, especially in the minds of army officers
and the jewel in the Crown had become by 1945 the largest military base in
the world in the Suez Canal zone.1 The Indian Ocean and its shores, which,
along with the northern shores of the Mediterranean (East of France and
Spain), Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Iran, India and Black Africa, formed the
regions covered by the British Defence Co-ordination Committee (BDCC)
(Middle East).2 Whatever the realities of the economic and political value
of the Middle East, British Army officers, with interwar experiences of the
BDCC region informing their perceptions, believed the region to be
important. In addition, the idea of imperial defence had been increasingly
linked to the Middle East in the eyes of the army by the fact that victories
had been won there in two World Wars whilst nothing but ignominious
defeat had resulted from excursions onto the continent of Europe.
This was a clear hint that military planning for the post-war world was
likely to be conducted with the British Empire very much in mind. There-
fore, the relationship between the foreign policy needs of any future Euro-
pean strategy and the military rationale for a continental commitment
might not be easy to reconcile. With the creation of NATO, this problem
became too difficult to ignore. The differences between the military and
the FO led to the latter instigating a move away from traditional imperial
priorities. It was fairly simple to disentangle the roles of the FO and COS
when the issue was the political formation of a western European bloc.3
Things were to become different when the political perceptions related to
52 J. Kent
Britain’s global role and status were at issue. Foreign policy and strategy
were not so easy to separate in the defining and development of such a
global, imperial role even if military operational plans were initially
shelved partly because of the need to incorporate the use of nuclear
weapons, which in 1945 were still shrouded in uncertainty.
It is worth contemplating exactly what ‘imperial defence’ meant with
regard to foreign policy and the new global role in the radically new post-
war circumstances of the Cold War. Imperial defence in this period
(1945–56), police operations or anti-guerrilla warfare aside, first came to
mean protecting the strategic position of the Commonwealth when the
idea of giving this operational forms had not been finally abandoned. It
was then defined as the global strategy underpinning Britain’s position as
a world power. Britain as a global power, with important influence in
Europe, would retain this role through its defence policy and military
deployments that helped produce and justify the power political influence
required. In 1947, Britain could still aspire to play a military role in parts
of the globe outside Europe (or out of area), or so it was assumed.
It would continue to aspire to do so until 1956, when this too was revealed
as a total sham in so much as military operations in the Commonwealth
depended on foreign policy delivering the American alliance or at least
ensuring US tolerance of any such operations.
First attempts by the military to produce a strategy for defending the
Commonwealth and prepare for future global war were made in early
1946.4 By then, key disagreements in the attempts to produce peace settle-
ments were reflecting the rhetorical gestures towards the establishment of
freedom and self-determination. These conflicted with the FO policies that
embraced the power political spirit inherent in spheres of interest and the
British Empire.5 Whatever the justification for the British imperial ethos,
there had to be a means of defending the empire now more commonly
referred to as the Commonwealth. Yet, the role this provided for the mili-
tary came to be more and more to provide the means of justifying its polit-
ical existence rather than providing for its military defence and security.
For foreign policy, the preserving of a global role as one of the Big
Three Powers came in 1948 to require the merging of an imperial with a
European role in a Third Force led by Britain which would constitute a
Third World Power.6 The development of a European strategy in ways
which would contribute to the Empire/Commonwealth enhancing
Britain’s future global role had first been suggested by Sir Orme Sargent,
permanent under-secretary at the FO, in his famous ‘Stocktaking on VE
Day’ memorandum.7 In contrast, the military, in attempting to define a
strategy for the Defence of the Commonwealth, had taken on board the
past lessons of the Second World War. The apparently glorious victories in
the North African desert of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery were cer-
tainly uppermost in the mind of the man who had achieved them and who
became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in June 1946.
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 53
The most obvious lesson was that a land power on the Continent could
dominate Western Europe; yet, the British Empire/Commonwealth, with
the right allies and support, could survive. Moreover, it could even emerge
victorious through a strategy that could maintain the informal Anglo-Amer-
ican military alliance while preserving and exploiting or developing key
imperial regions. This was at the heart of the arguments over defining a
post-war military strategy for a major war in 1946 and 1947. The military
ideas were referred to in the context of the ‘The Strategic Position of the
British Commonwealth’ which would ensure an important role for Britain
as a world power in line with the military’s imperial ethos.8 They would
exclude the incorporation of Europe as the FO were suggesting and thereby
avoid the disadvantages of cooperating with left-wing Europeans as well as
adding to defence commitments. Therefore, instead of thinking of uniting
the empire and Europe, the military were thinking more in terms of aban-
doning Europe if the empire was to make the most of its limited resources.
The military strategy of course emphasised the importance of the
Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, which heightened the geo-
strategic conflict that was emerging out of the Soviet desire to get greater
access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean by revising the Montreux
Convention.9 These strategic ambitions in the Mediterranean clearly exac-
erbated the developing political tension between Britain and the Soviet
Union.10 The requirements of foreign policy, as opposed to military
deployments and operations, were designed to be compatible with
Britain’s past and present imperial role, but in ways which reflected some
of the new post-war circumstances that were no longer in line with the mil-
itary’s imperial conceptions. In the long and medium term, as will be
seen, this in fact ceased to matter when the military no longer had the
resources and therefore any capacity to carry out such roles. In effect, the
armed forces were to become the provider of military strategic rationales
that were not dictated by operational requirements but were used to
justify power political foreign policy goals.
The military in the late 1940s remained committed to imperial defence
at the expense of Europe and with little regard for the political require-
ments of foreign policy. The military had originally based the broad
concept of Commonwealth (imperial) defence in global war on the idea
of main support areas that were necessary for eventual victory and the
three pillars required to ensure they were protected and maintained in
wartime. The main support areas were deemed to be the Western hemi-
sphere and the white Dominions, despite the fact that South African alle-
giance to the war effort from 1939 to 1945 was a close-run thing. The
other resources were expected to come from Black Africa, and as in
Second World War, Britain would be cut off from a hostile Western
Europe. Britain, the first pillar, the Middle East, the second pillar and, as
in the recent war, the sea communications between Britain and the main
support areas were the crucial three pillars. If the Red Army were to
54 J. Kent
overrun Western Europe, Britain could eventually emerge victorious by
relying on the Dominions and Africa which required the preservation of a
Middle Eastern presence to defend it. Hence, the perceptions of the mili-
tary associated with Britain’s past imperial roles were fully incorporated.11
It was not true (apart from India and other South Asian non-self-
governing territories) that decolonisation was destroying an imperial role
and it was certainly not the desire of the military in the 1940s that an
imperial role should end. One strategic argument initially put forward by
the military in 1946 had been that there should be no potentially hostile
power flanking British air and sea communications in the Mediterranean.
This was particularly important for the links to the main support areas of
the Antipodean Dominions, and to ensure that Britain remained linked to
the Middle East, the crucial area in preserving Black Africa from ingress
by a potentially hostile power.12 Attlee regarded this idea as outmoded and
a reflection of an imperial past built on sea power which was no longer
relevant in an age of air power which the Second World War had inaug-
urated.13 For the prime minister, communications with the important
areas of the empire East of Suez could be maintained via the Cape route
which would avoid the gathering conflict with the Soviet Union.14
Along the lines put forward by Liddell Hart, Attlee developed in March
an alternative to a costly and wasteful strategy for defending the empire in
the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Imperial defence was to be based
in Black Africa and specifically on an axis running from Lagos in the West
to Mombasa in the East. Liddell Hart’s ideas for imperial defence were
stimulated by a desire to avoid a confrontation with the Soviets in ways
which would be unaffordable and impractical.15 In February 1946, the
foreign secretary had already examined the idea of developing Mombasa
as a major base to replace Egypt from which British evacuation had first
been proposed in December 1945.16 The COS had firmly rejected the idea
of abandoning a peacetime garrison in Egypt. Yet the FO, at the official
level, believed that this continued military presence could not be justified
if ‘the overall defence of the British Empire can be assured by substituting
for the Egypt–Palestine–Transjordan–Iraq bastion the East African bastion
plus through communications with West Africa’.17
This formed the point which Bevin then went on to develop. He added
the African requirements to the Middle Eastern ones by pointing to the
power political needs served by the Middle East rather than just its mili-
tary/strategic importance. ‘Our presence in the Mediterranean serves a
purpose other than a military purpose which is vital to our position as a
Great Power’. If Britain moved out of the Mediterranean the Russians
would move in, an act guaranteed to allow all sorts of economic disasters
to ensue.18 In addition to the loss of democracy, Italy was deemed likely to
leave Western civilisation and any weakening of Britain’s positioning the
Mediterranean was deemed likely to cause the end of social democracy.
Hence the need to support the Lagos–Mombasa line and develop Britain’s
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 55
imperial defence position in East Africa, not as an alternative to the
Middle East and the Mediterranean but to strengthen it. From the FO’s
point of view, it would also have the advantage of solving the Egyptian
base evacuation problem.
Yet, despite this agreement between the military and the foreign secret-
ary on the way a Lagos–Mombasa strategy would add to a Middle Eastern
strategy, the military did not accept Western Europe as a factor to be
added to imperial defence. Indeed, the COS continued to see the two
areas as alternatives. Despite these differences, what united the FO and the
military in their approach to imperial defence was the idea of maximising
the appearance of British world power through a military presence in the
Middle East. This concept was to remain, albeit in changing guises, both
before and after the debacle of Suez in 1956, and the imperial element,
defined as the projection of power, still continues in Mr Blair’s concep-
tion of a ‘pivotal’ world role for Britain.
Unfortunately, the different military and political strategies to achieve
this soon became clear between 1947 and 1949. Then, with NATO eventu-
ally being followed by the transition to a revised global strategy paper in
1952, a new era of greater unity over imperial defence between the FO and
the military was finally confirmed. The military, although they would not
openly acknowledge it, were by then faced with the unavoidable reality that
idea of imperial defence, or any meaningful defence in a general global
role, was operationally impossible however pivotal it might be deemed by
politicians. Yet, Bevin and the FO had already laid out strategic require-
ments in the informal empire (the Middle East in particular). These were
regarded in the FO as necessary to contribute important power political
effects but justified by their military operational effectiveness. And the mili-
tary would subsequently assist the FO in the 1950s by devising new strategic
and military positions to support the power political requirements. In
effect, the latter were to enhance Britain’s global role and justified by the
alleged needs of imperial defence based in the Middle East.
In 1948, when military plans for global conflict were first drawn up by
the military planners, (they were emergency plans, meaning plans to fight
with the resources available) for operations in Europe and the Middle
East, previous assumptions began to appear seriously questionable. From
the start, a number of unpalatable facts about ‘hard’ British power
became too obvious to ignore. British imperial defence, even without a
possible continental commitment, was living on borrowed time. The FO
was however hoping to borrow time in abundance for Britain to recover
economically, helped by the resources of the sterling area and the colo-
nial empire in Africa.19 This goal had produced the ‘First Aim of Foreign
Policy’ in January 1948 in a Cabinet paper, which first revealed a problem
in reconciling the ‘hard’ power facts accompanying an imperial defence
strategy with the political means envisaged in the FO for maximising
British post-war global power and influence.20
56 J. Kent
The FO was in fact no longer happy with a military strategy relying on
an imperial position alone.21 As Europe recovered, much effort was
devoted to developing links with the Western Europeans that could be
combined with an imperial, global role still uppermost in the minds of
policy makers, especially the military. Like the Treasury and the Board of
Trade, the military were not keen on the European connection because
of their perceptions of economically weak left-wing Europeans.22 By late
1949, the economic realities of the hoped-for African resources had
impacted on policy makers, and the Third World Power idea was replaced
as the first aim of British foreign policy by the Cabinet.23
The strategic concept underlying imperial defence remained however,
and the Strategic Position of the Commonwealth continued as its military
centrepiece which defined strategic priorities in global war. This
remained so even when the US Joint COS informed their British counter-
parts in August 1949, after the signing of the NATO treaty, of their new
strategic concept that would replace Plan Fleetwood their plan for global
war. Fleetwood was the US equivalent of the British plan Speedway (the
first had been called Doublequick), whose successor Galloper now had to
be revised as the Americans were less interested in the Middle East than in
defending a bridgehead in Southern Europe.24 The idea in taking account
of NATO was to avoid a repeat of a D-Day invasion of occupied Europe.
This also required the abandonment of the American commitment in the
first month of war to dispatch American forces to the defence of the
Middle East, the vital area in any future global war, for the British imperial
defence strategy.
The formation of NATO did not lead to a greater military emphasis on
a continental commitment at the expense of imperial defence by the mili-
tary. The British military did not believe that the Russians would attack
Western Europe and hence questioned the need for forces to defend the
Continent.25 One might have thought that as the BDCC Middle East
looked at the growing problems of planning for the defence of the Middle
East,26 it would lead both to a greater European commitment to NATO
and to a new approach to imperial defence. Moreover, with the emer-
gency in Malaya in 1948, the ‘terrorist’ attacks in the Suez Canal zone in
1951 and the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in 1952, the deployment of
troops in an imperial policing role was by itself reducing available
resources. Thus it would be more difficult for an imperial power to meet
any wartime commitments, and a strategic defence of the empire would
no longer be a practical use of resources. Yet, this was only partially true as
the old requirements of maintaining Britain’s position as world power to
which the Empire/Commonwealth, measured in power political and not
colonial terms, remained. Hence, the empire was intrinsically necessary in
that sense, and imperial defence became more and more a defence of a
concept and its political value and less a commitment to a specific opera-
tional role.
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 57
The first plan for the defence of the Middle East with the forces then
available, drawn up in June 1948 and known as Plan Sandown, was based
on the Tel Aviv–Ramallah line.27 This was hardly the defence of the Middle
East and could only be portrayed as such if it was assumed that in the
future more forces would be available at cheaper cost. When in fact the
opposite turned out to be the case and the limited practical boundary of
operations defined by the Tel Aviv–Ramallah continually expanded, this
inconvenient fact was largely ignored. Yet, it enabled the FO to help define
a world role for Britain by calling on strategic justifications that the military
were only too happy to provide, however spurious, in operational terms.
The American change of strategy with its abandonment of a Middle East
commitment in the early stages of war did have one important con-
sequence. The planners were asked in November 1949 to revise the exist-
ing Strategic Position of the Commonwealth Paper of 1947. When they did
so, and it was presented to the Defence Committee in June 1950,28 the
changes reflected the fact that Britain was still deemed to be playing an
important world role. The choice of empire or Europe was being avoided,
even though the increasing disparity between commitments that had to be
retained for geopolitical/status reasons, and the resources that were avail-
able to meet them continued to grow. This disparity really emerged in the
mid-1950s, but the signs were already there during 1949–1950.
The problem by August 1949 was not just the American reluctance to
accept the three pillars (Britain, the Middle East and the defence of sea
communications) of imperial defence. The FO feared the economic con-
sequences of Europe not recovering and dragging Britain down, so policy
makers found it easier to accept a special place in an American-dominated
alliance.29 Yet they remained committed to some lesser form of integration
and cooperation with Western Europe as this could provide the Ameri-
cans with a rationale for Britain’s special position. In addition, the Cold
War need of solidifying a Western bloc, for which the military (apart from
Montgomery) had little time, was now a key FO consideration. Yet, the dif-
ficulties of committing forces to Europe,30 which gave substance to the
desired cooperation in line with a military strategy, remained. The military
remained reluctant to have the military importance of Commonwealth
defence superseded by the political importance of NATO.31
The retreat from empire in the sense of its military/strategic raison
d’être or in the influence and prestige that a military commitment
represented was not underway. The provision of ‘security’ through bases
and their apparent strategic rationale could give a power like Britain,
seeking the preservation of a global role, important cards to play. Even if
imperialism and empire were no longer acceptable words, and even if
Britain lacked the military resources to carry out effective operations,
there was the Cold War. As we will see, the FO and the military came
increasingly to support each other in the attempts to promote a global
role for Britain by using imperial defence, especially the protection of
58 J. Kent
the Middle East in the Cold War, in ways which would preserve British
influence. The more so as it became obvious, there were insufficient
conventional forces for global war operations in either Europe or the
Middle East.
As imperial defence or the strategic position of the Commonwealth was
replaced by global strategy, the shadow of British power could no longer
be translated from a concept into a tangible, military/strategic reality. The
realities were the atomic bombs and the Cold War, defined as the war for
hearts and minds fought by all means short of international armed con-
flict. This was to have a great and largely misunderstood impact on global
strategy. The Soviets had exploded their first atomic bomb in August 1949
and caused consternation in the West which influenced the American pro-
duction of National Security Council Report 68 (NSC 68).32 It also led the
British to become nervous about the scale of attack that could be
unleashed on the British Isles following a Soviet conquest of Western
Europe. One obvious effect might be the reallocation of forces earmarked
for the Middle East to assist in preventing the Soviets arriving so easily on
the Channel coast. In particular, the despatch of two divisions was agreed
by the Defence Committee on 24 March 1950.33
It was noted that the United Kingdom could not provide the forces to
defend the British Isles and Western Europe in addition to the forces
needed to defend the imperial lifelines and the Middle East. In fact, as was
soon to be noted, it could not provide for the collective defence of Western
Europe but could successfully contribute to a collective defence of the
Middle East – which the Americans were now refusing to join. This recent
decision on the despatch of two divisions to Western Europe in the event of
war would not, however, reduce the land reinforcements planned for the
Middle East (two divisions) nor even delay them. What it would mean was
that there could be no rapid follow-up of such reinforcements. More worry-
ingly, while the initial forces to defend Egypt were not very great (in effect,
the defence of Egypt was called the defence of the Middle East under Plan
Sandown), already in 1950

they are beyond the capacity of the UK alone to provide. The retention
of our position in the Middle East is of such importance to the cohe-
sion of the British Commonwealth in cold and hot war34 that we should
do all in our power to engage Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
– and we hope some day in happier times Pakistan and possibly even
India – to undertake firm commitments to send armed forces to the
Middle East as soon as possible after the outbreak of war.35

Bombers earmarked for the Middle East, although not in a strategic

role, were to be moved back to Europe under Galloper, and the strategic
bombing of the Soviet Union would be left to the Americans (the length-
ening of the runways at Abu Sueir was vital if the Americans were to launch
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 59
offensive operations from the base in the Canal Zone as opposed to using
it as a staging post). Unfortunately for Britain’s global military role, the
United States then confirmed in June 1950 that they had no intention of
sending forces to assist in the air defence of the Middle East because they
did not intend to use the area as a base for long-range bombing.36 Worse
was soon to follow to reveal the futility of a British, or indeed a European,
commitment to the conventional defence of Western Europe.
Imperial defence, or now Commonwealth defence, remained centred
on the Middle East, whatever the position of Western Europe. As well,
Britain could no longer provide for the defence needs of the Antipodean
Dominions in the Commonwealth. However, reinforcements from Aus-
tralia and New Zealand for a possible war in Europe remained a classic
example of inadequate British resources being hopefully augmented
through Commonwealth contributions that would be justified in terms of
Cold War and not imperial needs. It was, therefore, hoped that the
ANZAM area in the South Pacific would not receive more than the
minimum essential strength and that any surplus Australian and New
Zealand forces would be available to defend the Middle East.37
The manner by which Britain initially avoided abandoning an imperial
global strategy, while attempting to support the political needs of the FO
in Western Europe, was to retain the three-pillar strategy by incorporating
Western Europe into the first pillar (the defence of the United
Kingdom).38 Hence, when the review of global strategy, as imperial
defence was now incorporated under, was completed in June 1950, the
continuing importance of the Middle East was confirmed.39 This was
despite the growing problems with force provision, as well as the resource
difficulties of projecting hard power on a global basis to conform with the
commitment to Britain’s world role. The decision of Australia and New
Zealand to establish military relations with the Americans, independently
of Britain, through the the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security
Treaty (ANZUS) treaty proved indicative of the way things were develop-
ing by1951.40 Ironically, from mid-1950s, British appeals to the Common-
wealth Dominions in the Pacific to provide forces for the old imperial
defence of the Middle East were never more than partially successful. But,
of course, imperial operations in Malaya or Egypt could be justified by a
Cold War cloak. The British were determined to use the strategic require-
ments, apparently inherent in military facilities and operations, to conceal
whatever imperial role might be retained – at cheaper costs than hot war
requirements.
The modification of defence strategy in June 1950 was in a sense over-
taken by events in Korea within a matter of days. The following year when
the dust had settled on the devastation and the changes in the world situ-
ation, notably the acceptance of German rearmament, it was revised
again. Despite a Cold War providing more justification for the imperial
Cold War roles of the French in Indo-China and the British in Malaya, the
60 J. Kent
principles underlying the 1950 modifications remained unchanged.
Although the world situation had become more serious in Cold and hot
war terms, the measures adopted by the Western powers were deemed to
have developed principles which in the British case went back to 1947.41
Yet with a Cold War strategy, British military operational planning in
the Middle East would now have to take account of a foreign policy more
centred on Europe. As Europe was now deemed more vital for the
defence of the British Isles, operations in a hot war would seem to become
more important. The deployment of nuclear weapons, assuming the
failure of their deterrent role, would continue to play a key role at least
until NATO had developed sufficient conventional strength to defend
Western Europe. Yet, there was to be no abandonment of a Middle
Eastern strategic commitment and the diplomatic efforts to secure Egypt-
ian acceptance of a British military presence in Egypt in peacetime. Natu-
rally, the military argued that any defence of the Middle East depended
on this requirement being met.
The commitment to defend the Middle East (in effect Egypt) remained
the stated goal into 1951 even after it was realised by the men on the spot
in the spring of 1950 that the defence of the Middle East was not possible
given that Britain would have such few resources.42 As such, it was decided
that British defence plans could not be disclosed to the Middle Eastern
states as ‘the little the UK can actually do to protect the Middle East’ was
more likely to lower the morale than to raise it. The Tel Aviv–Ramallah
line (the defence of the base in Egypt) remained the only viable option
under Plan Celery (the emergency plan for the Middle East) with the
forces actually available. It was assumed that Australian, New Zealand and
South African forces would not arrive for several months after the out-
break of war.43 If American forces were now to be included (contrary to
American plans), then a successful defence of the Inner Ring (running
from the Turkish Mediterranean coast opposite Cyprus along the Taurus
mountains to Malatya, south along the Firat River to the Anti-Lebanon
mountains and south to the lava belt) could be planned for. Yet at the end
of the day, the decision between the Inner Ring and the Lebanon–Jordan
line (a line astride the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains north of
the Beirut–Damascus road, then south through Lake Tiberius and south
through the Jordan Valley) would have to depend on the Anglo-American
forces at the time. One is tempted to say at the beginning of 1951 that
there were little or no realistic reasons to adopt either an imperial defence
policy or a European one when Britain had decided to adopt both.
In 1951, the FO continued to attempt to renegotiate the soon-to-be-
expiring Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. Bevin had several meetings with
the Egyptian Foreign Minister Saleh el Din in December 195044 and, in
the face of the military’s objections, was prepared to concede ownership
and control of the base and its equipment in 1951. Unfortunately,
Herbert Morrison became foreign secretary in March 1951, the same
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 61
month that the majlis in Iran also nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil
Company. This produced a furious reaction to the damage it caused to
British imperial prestige and hardened British attitudes to an Egyptian
agreement. The classic reason for not surrendering the vestiges of infor-
mal empire in the Middle East prevented the contemplated concessions
and ensured the Ambassador in Cairo Sir Ralph Stevenson’s advice was
ignored.45 Thus the Egyptians, who would only reach an agreement
encompassing a British evacuation in peacetime, were faced with a British
government that would only accept an agreement allowing for evacuation
based on the alleged military requirements.46 The new foreign secretary’s
proposals embodying an air defence organisation and the military forces
to be stationed in Egypt were then embodied in a paper considered by the
Cabinet on 30 March47 and finally approved on 2 April 1951.48 They meant
that military needs had justified an imperial presence in Egypt and pre-
vented the FO securing an agreement with the Egyptians.
It was already obvious that the idea of imperial defence, even meaning
only the most vital area (the defence of the Middle East), was somewhat
spurious given the lack of British resources which simply could not
provide for the operations that were necessary to implement the strategy.
Defence of the empire would become the uniting feature of military and
civilian planners because they were becoming joint participants in main-
taining an imperial role for Britain in the Middle East. From October
1951, when the Egyptians abrogated the 1936 treaty it became a serious
business when a campaign of violence against the British began. The
doubling of the numbers of troops in the Canal Zone was far more than
an imperial police operation because of the importance of the Middle
East for Britain’s place in the world. It signified a link between defending
an imperial past and defining a military strategy linked to the pursuit of
the Cold War.
The revision of global strategy in June 1950 had clearly been done with
the distinction between Cold and hot war very much in mind but had
emphasised the need not to form two separate compartments out of the
two concepts. Naturally, the military argued that the fighting of the Cold
War had to be consistent with the strategy for hot war and largely condi-
tioned by it.49 Put another way, the old idea of defending the empire had
to be linked to the requirements of preventing the spread of communism
on a global, not simply, European basis. Nor could the military, or the FO,
be sanguine about the erosion of British status in the Middle East. The
Cold War had to be related to military strength, and the priority in the
short term had to be the stabilisation of the anti-communist front, espe-
cially in the Middle East. The British were committed to defend the
Middle East in the hot war for which they allegedly needed a base and
peacetime presence in Egypt. Hence the linkage between the Cold and
hot war. ‘The essential garrison and emergency forces in Europe the
Middle East and Far East’ were ‘to win the Cold War’ but were pretending
62 J. Kent
to be ‘the vital requirements of preparedness for hot war’ that was more
and more a pretence. Hot war needs also included ‘the air defence of the
UK with special reference to atomic attack, the security of the North
Atlantic sea route and our home waters. Our commitments to Western
Europe for the defence of the land frontier in Europe’. Second in import-
ance in hot war were ‘the UK share in the defence of the Egyptian base
and the control of the Mediterranean sea route for as long as possible with
the US navy and its denial to the enemy’.50 The military commitment to
the Egyptian base was not only questioned from within the embassy in
Egypt, but also by the State Department. The FO was informed of their
belief that Egyptian nationalism would not be overcome by a head-on con-
frontation. The bigger question was whether British forces anywhere in
the Middle East could serve as a stabilising factor in the Cold War or, as
the Americans came to believe, a source of provocation to the nationalists.
It was a vital question for the way in which the British were attempting to
use ‘defence’ needs as a justification for a military presence justified by
Cold War needs by the possible fighting of a hot war irrespective of its feas-
ibility. The reality was that the military and the FO were now both commit-
ted to the Cold War as a means of removing the imperial stigma while still
ensuring that the old imperial values of projecting power in the world
remained to benefit Britain’s global status. The alleged military defence
needs would continue to provide a justification for this essentially imperial
strategy.
This was what was confirmed in the major revision of global strategy in
1952 which also had to take account of the economic circumstances dictat-
ing defence expenditure cuts. Unfortunately, these seemed to have grave
implications for the specifics of a Middle Eastern defence strategy that was
already struggling realistically to be able to defend anything more than
the base in Egypt. However, the disparity between resources and their
deployment in the circumstances of hot war was much less if their main
rationale was presented privately as Cold War. Yet the problem in deploy-
ing all British troops, which Eden and the FO were aware of, was growing
particularly in Egypt.
Thus the defence of the United Kingdom and Western Europe was a
Category A obligation for the FO while that of the Commonwealth and
the Middle East were only Category B. The FO paper which was pre-
sented to the Cabinet as an accompaniment to the military’s global strat-
egy paper was entitled ‘British Overseas Obligations’. It noted that ‘the
essence of a sound foreign policy is to ensure a country’s strength is
equal to its obligations’ and consequently if the effort required to main-
tain them was beyond the capacity of existing resources, a difficult choice
had to be faced. Yet it was not one that inevitably meant reducing com-
mitments. If Britain were to do that, the British people would see their
country ‘sink to the level of a second class power, with injury to their
essential interests and way of life’. Damage to the Commonwealth and to
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 63
the special relationship which Britain allegedly had with the United
States and Europe would also follow as these relationships depended

‘largely on our status as a world power and upon their belief that we
are ready and willing to support them . . .’ Finally there is the general
effect of loss of prestige. It is impossible to assess in concrete terms
the consequences to our ourselves and the Commonwealth of our
drastically and unilaterally reducing our responsibilities . . . But once
the prestige of a country has started to slide there is no knowing
where it will stop.51

While both papers were primarily concerned with defending the threat
to Britain’s world role, the COS global strategy paper had more imperial
implications. This imperial role could now be maintained or justified on a
global basis because of the Cold War, which was formally placed at the
forefront of military global strategy. The suggestions made by Field Mar-
shall Slim for winning the Cold War had as their first priority the mainte-
nance of adequate forces in overseas theatres (Asia and Africa) to hold
back aggressive communism.52 Furthermore, the chiefs briefed the prime
minister on the importance of the Middle East by arguing that if Britain
evacuated Egypt it would not only be a blow to its position as a great
power, but it also would create a vacuum which the Russians would enter
immediately. The result would inevitably be ‘Communist regimes in all
Arab states eventually extending from the Eastern Atlantic to the Indian
Subcontinent’.53
The COS 1952 global strategy paper defined the Cold War as the top
military priority compared with the hot war requirements needed to fight
a global war or even what was required for the provision of deterrent
forces.54 And with the Cold War coming before deterrence and fighting a
hot war, the key issue in 1952 was winning the Cold War to prevent an
international armed conflict. Yet unlike the FO, the military had little
time for Europe and preferred to refer to Her Majesty’s Government
(HMG) ‘pursuing a policy in the field of imperial and foreign affairs . . .
to maintain out interests in various parts of the world which are threat-
ened by the Cold War tactics of Russia and China’.55 The problem which
may have influenced the global strategy paper considerably was the need
for defence cutbacks in 1952, and the pressures to reduce the defence
budget were to continue to grow. In other words, it was now even more
difficult to accommodate the hot war requirements of NATO56 let alone
when combined with the Cold War requirements that were now seen as
key to the maintenance of Britain’s global role.57
Another major problem for military/strategic requirements designed
to achieve power political ends was inherent in the Cold War military
deployments. While garrisons and the stationing of British troops could be
done more cheaply than providing the necessary forces for the hot war,
64 J. Kent
the focus on empire ran up more and more against the mounting
problem of nationalist movements. Whether in the formal or informal
empire, they were either opposed to the continuation of British rule or, in
the case of Egypt, to the maintenance of British influence they represen-
ted. Fighting the Cold War was bad for the Western position precisely
because of its association with the empire, which had been the main
British reason for the power political connection in the first place. The
immediate consequence was the strengthening of the FO position that the
maintenance of a military presence in Egypt should not continue to be
insisted on at the expense of the kind of hostility from the Egyptians
which it was now provoking. Hence Eden was less willing to confront
nationalism by 1953 and was prepared to abandon the peacetime occupa-
tion of the Suez Canal base for an agreement guaranteeing its availability
to the British in wartime.58
The situation following the finalisation of the global strategy paper was
further changed by the explosion of the hydrogen bomb by the United
States in 1952 and then by the Soviet Union in 1953. The explosive power
from fusing the atom was 1,000 times more than that developed by the
purely fission atomic weapons, and the reliance on large military bases
naturally came to be regarded as less appropriate in the thermonuclear
age. However, at the end of 1952, the military were coming round to
accepting the FO line that the peacetime evacuation of Egypt might be
desirable and necessary. Studies were authorised on the basis of planning
with no base in Egypt and on the forces available being reduced to one
division and 160 aircrafts – a cut of one division and 200 aeroplanes. In
short, radical cutbacks were altering military strategy in operational terms
and favouring a shift from Cold War priorities and sizeable bases to
emphasising the nuclear deterrent as the number one requirement for
global strategy which was formally instituted in 1955.59
It is important to note that the imperial alliance between the FO and
the COS remained a firm one once the agreement to leave Egypt had been
decided. The FO had their own reasons for wanting bases in Iraq irrespec-
tive of any spurious justification for a military presence designed to symbol-
ise prestige and influence through the ostensible provision of military
capabilities to defend the Middle East. The FO was still committed to an
imperial role but now again added to a European one which would make
Britain more attractive as an ally to the Americans. The way of doing it in
the 1950s was, in effect, to play the leading regional role on behalf of the
Western alliance in Cold War areas of the Middle East and Black Africa.
The diplomatic achievements of Eden at Geneva in 1954 were not
designed to do more than play a supportive role alongside the Americans
despite the different approaches to Southeast Asia by the two powers. The
Middle East was different and regarded as a British Commonwealth
responsibility, hence the efforts, for example, to get the Australians and
New Zealanders to agree to provide an air squadron or two.60 There had
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 65
also been suggestions of a Middle East Command to make a British pres-
ence in Egypt more justifiable, and when 1953 began, this had become a
proposed Middle East Defence Organisation designed to take the imperial
stigma but not the prestige away from a British military presence.61
However, when Dulles toured the Middle East in the summer of 1953,
he was confronted with the failure of such ideas and struck by the resent-
ment that the imperial British presence was provoking in Egypt.62 It was
the start of exactly what the FO feared, namely, the Americans deciding
that they now ought to make their own policies for the region and not rely
on taking the lead from the British in military matters. As Roger Allen, the
head of the African Department, noted, the American attitude to the
supply of military equipment to the Middle East made it clear that they
wanted to now establish a position to the detriment of the long-standing
British position in the region.63 The FO saw problems in this new, more
independent American position, whereas the chiefs, always more inclined
to have faith in the value of American benevolence, were more concerned
with indigenous challenges to Britain’s regional position. The military
now shared the FO’s concern that hostile Egyptian nationalists could
make the base a liability,64 ‘as our strength declined it became increasingly
important to show we meant business there’.65 This was an example of
how strategic requirements were interpreted in order to demonstrate
Britain’s global status and its valuable presence in the Middle East, rather
than having any viable operational rationale.
The prospects seemed good for a choice being made to spend increas-
ingly scarce military resources on the nuclear deterrent, and the conven-
tional forces deemed necessary for the deterrence to work and to enhance
Britain’s credibility in Europe. Yet, in fact, Britain’s imperial status as a
global power had to be consolidated because of the retreat from Egypt in
the eyes of both the military and the FO. The stationing of British forces
for Cold War reasons, ostensibly linked to the defence of the Middle East,
required a new base and a new strategy. The military gave attention to this
before the agreements on the evacuation of the Suez Canal Base were
signed with the Egyptians in the summer and autumn of 1954. The three
possible areas which came to mind in 1954 and 1955 were Cyprus, Iraq
and Jordan. None of them proved viable long-term prospects and
although Cyprus and Jordan faded from consideration in 1956 without
causing any major disasters, the quest for an Iraqi base was to lead directly
to the Baghdad Pact. Not only did this prove to be unpopular with both
Arabs and Israelis, it also proved unpopular with the French and after
some initial enthusiasm American support for the Pact soon began to
wane. It was the Pact which epitomised the farcical role of operational
capability in relation to strategy and politics and without which the Suez
debacle would have been much less likely. And then the last imperial gasp
would have been far less humiliating in bringing to an end the imperial
defence of the Middle East based on the Levant.
66 J. Kent
The old imperial traditions were clung to most fervently by the military
when formulating British global strategy in defence terms. Despite the
hydrogen bomb, the Cold War rationale for force deployments to fulfil a
global role and its associated prestige remained. It was again argued that
to abandon significant Cold War commitments would make hot war more
likely and cause damage to Britain’s position, influence, security and com-
merce.66 Therefore, the military view was that it was necessary to retain all
overseas bases except Korea, Trieste and the Suez Canal zone to maintain
Britain’s position as a world power.67 With the departure from Egypt, the
Cyprus base, which had replaced Egypt as Middle East HQ, was discussed
in similar terms. It was not the strategic assessments of what military opera-
tions the base was needed for that were producing the need for military
facilities on sovereign British territory. It was the political wish to demon-
strate a British presence in the Middle East that provided the rationale for
British sovereignty and in the military’s own terms made the base essen-
tial. The strategic arguments were, as the chief of the Air Staff pointed
out, subsidiary to the political requirements.68
The extent to which the desire for the political status from a global
role was dictating military thinking on defence and security within an
imperial context was now absolutely clear. It was precisely revealed again
when the COS expressed agreement on Cyprus with the BDCC that
‘British influence and prestige in the Middle East as a whole could not
be retained without the retention of our present military position in
Cyprus which was therefore strategically essential’.69 While the military
were considering Cyprus, the other and more disastrous quest for a base
to replace Egypt was being pursued by the FO. Again the motivation was
the need for the retention of an important presence in the Middle East as
a contribution to Britain’s global role. This would confirm, especially to
Washington, Britain’s special position in a changed strategic world where
large-scale forces no longer served the same needs. It was precisely
because of the perceived military contribution, allegedly to the defence
strategy for the Middle East, but in reality to the maintenance of British
prestige in the region, that the FO could continue to see political value in
forming the Baghdad Pact.
The problems foreseen with the Baghdad Pact were recognised in the
FO and it remains unclear as to whether the military arguments strength-
ened the hands of those most in favour of a continued imperial role in the
Middle East. One official referred to ‘seizing the bird in the hand’ of the
Turco-Iraqi Pact in order to provide the umbrella for the continued mili-
tary presence in Iraq.70 Extending it would remove, so it was hoped, the
stigma of a British presence signifying imperialism. From the FO point of
view, the value of the Baghdad Pact was first noted in terms of the need to
convince others that Britain could defend them and thereby prevent the
United States undermining the British position. How much this view was
increased by defence pacts in the less-developed world like the Southeast
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 67
Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) in Southeast Asia is difficult to tell.
What is certain is that the Baghdad Pact, like the other post-war military
alliances in the West, was primarily created for political reasons. As well, it
was a disastrous mistake to ally with an Arab rival to Egypt so soon after
Nasser had successfully removed Western imperial influence in the form
of a military presence on Egyptian soil. The Baghdad Pact aroused viru-
lent Egyptian opposition, as the British and the Americans were relying on
Nasser to play a key role in Plan Alpha, the Anglo-American attempt to
bring about a settlement of the Arab–Israeli dispute. And it constituted
the first disastrous contradiction in the British attempt to maintain an
imperial defence commitment in the heart of the Middle East that ended
with Suez.
The Baghdad Pact and the attempt to use it to maintain British prestige
and influence ironically came to depend on deceptions over the availability
of nuclear weapons as the political battle between Britain and Egypt over
Middle Eastern leadership of the Arab world intensified. More important,
it coincided with the latest FO attempt to press again for a European con-
nection, expressed in power political terms through nuclear cooperation as
opposed to global influence exercised through an imperial and European
combination. The British military had to face the unpleasant fact that for
political reasons the outer ring strategy for the defence of the Middle East
required more and more resources as British defence cuts were only able,
after 1953 and 1955, to provide less and less. When the last desperate card
to retain British imperial influence in the Middle East was played in the
form of military aggression to remove Nasser, the imperial losses were con-
siderable. In general terms, the idea that British foreign policy could pre-
serve a global role through playing the leading role in the Middle East on
behalf of the Cold War needs of the Western alliance sank with the block
ships in the Suez Canal. Yet, even that was not enough to prevent the
British abandoning the delusions of grandeur that might be sustained by a
military strategy divorced from the political requirements of decolonisation
but not from the projection of British power on a global basis.
Ironically, as Egyptian opposition to the Pact began to cause difficulties
weeks before the Suez crisis, the FO began to consider ways in which the
military commitment to an imperial defence strategy might be offset by a
greater commitment to Europe. As before, this perception grew from
consideration of Britain’s position as a global power, which required more
military focus on Europe because of the political benefits. It was not a
clear choice in favour of a pre-Suez European strategy but a way of again
combining the empire and Europe which followed consideration of the
future of the Commonwealth in June 1956. The review by the Common-
wealth Relations Office forecast that Britain’s position would become less
dominant, but that Britain could continue ‘to derive increasing influence
as a world power from its headship of the Commonwealth’.71 But influ-
ence from Europe and nuclear weapons would be a possibility now that
68 J. Kent
defence needs could no longer be so easily met through an imperial
defence strategy. And Selwyn Lloyd suggested precisely this in early 1957.72
Changes had taken place since the war as the Commonwealth replaced
the empire and global strategy replaced imperial defence. But there were
large similarities once the FO and the military were fully committed in the
1950s to Britain’s global role. The means of developing this were clearly
the same in that operational rationales were developed to justify the mili-
tary deployments out of area that provided for the status and prestige such
deployments were perceived as representing in global terms. The hard
choice of an either or policy between Out of Area and European defence
when military strategy focused on imperial deployments while the FO
were desperately trying to gear force provision to the political require-
ments of NATO in Europe was avoided. It was only by combining the two
strategies that the resource needs of the European and global com-
ponents could be prevented from becoming an issue. Yet, the reality was
that Britain could not meet the resource needs of either area in whatever
military role. By such ‘defence’ means was the Empire/Commonwealth
justified and a weakened imperial role maintained even after Suez.

Notes
1 For the arguments on this perception of Empire’s changing importance, see
R. F. Holland, In Pursuit of Greatness: Britain and the World Role 1900–1970
(London, 1991). On the base in Egypt, see J Kent (ed.), British Documents on the
End of Empire Series B Vol 4 Part I xlv–l (London, 1998).
2 J. Kent (ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire, xlii.
3 The arguments between the FO and the COS over a Western European bloc
and the role of the post Hostilities Planning Committee have been well
covered with different interpretations in J. Lewis, Changing Direction: British Mil-
itary Planning for Post-War Strategic Defence 1942–1947 (London, 2002) and J.
Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War (Leicester, 1994).
4 AIR 9/267 Memo by ACAS(P) 24 Feb 1946 and see CAB 131/2 DO(46)40
Memo by Bevin 13 Mar. 1946.
5 FO 371/50912 Memo by Sir O Sargent ‘Stocktaking on VE Day’ outlines the
early ideas on the relationship between the smokescreen of liberalism and
Britain’s power political and imperial needs.
6 For the development of the Third World Power idea, see J. Kent, British Imper-
ial Strategy, Chapters 5 and 6.
7 FO 371/50912 Memo by Sir O Sargent ‘Stocktaking on VE Day’.
8 CAB 131/2 DO(46)47 2 Apr. 1946.
9 On Montreux at the end of the war, see CAB 80/97COS(45)551 and 573 and
the annexes 28 Aug. 1945 and 11 Sept. 1945; J. Kent, British Imperial Strategy,
69–71.
10 On the arguments during the war about the Straits and their significance, see
CAB 81/41 PHP(43)5 16 Aug. 1943;CAB 84/55 JP(43)294 20 Sept. 1943.
11 The imperial role needed on a global basis had been confirmed for the mili-
tary by the Second World War – contrary to the ending of direct colonial rule.
Hence Montgomery’s commitment to using Black Africa as a source of man-
power to replace the Indian army FO 800/451 Report by Montgomery to Bevin
25 Sept. 1947 and Glubb Pasha arguing for the importance of colonial areas
 The Foreign Office and defence of the empire 69
for military bases – ‘A Chain of Gibraltars’ FO371/91223 Memo by Glubb 23
May 1951.
12 CAB 131/2 COS(46)43 13 Feb. 1946.
13 CAB 131/2, DO(46)27 Memo by Attlee for the Defence Committee 2 Mar.
1946.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 In 1946, the FO was deep in negotiations with Egypt over the future of the base
in the Suez Canal Zone. See J. Kent (ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire
(BDEEP) Series B Vol 4 Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East 1945–56 Part I.
17 FO 371/53286 2 Mar. 1946.
18 CAB 131/12 DO(46)47 Memo by COS 2 Apr. 1946.
19 See J. Kent, ‘Bevin’s Foreign Policy and the Idea of Euro-Africa’ in M. Dockrill
and J. W. Young (eds).
20 CAB 129/23 CP(48), 4 Jan. 1948.
21 See FO 371/62557 Bevin to Creech Jones on 20 Aug. 1947 on the linkages
between the Marshal Plan and the colonies and CAB 134/1217. Memo by
Dalton 3 Jan. 1948.
22 Kent, British Imperial Strategy, 187–200.
23 CAB 129/37 Pt I CP(49)205 25 Oct. 1949.
24 DEFE 4/23 COS(49)113 3 Aug. 1949.
25 See DEFE 4/11 COS(48)39 Confidential Annex 17 Mar. 1948 for the views of
Sir John Cunningham and Lord Tedder on the Russians retreating eastwards
in any conflict rather than attacking westwards.
26 DEFE 5/20 COS(50)141, annex 28 Apr. 1950.
27 DEFE 4/16 COS(48)145 11 Oct. 1948 JP(48)106 annexes 7 Oct. 1948.
28 CAB 131/9 DO(50)45 7 June 1950.
29 CAB 129/37 Pt I CP(49)208 18 Oct. 1949.
30 DEFE 4/10 and 11 contain numerous discussions about force provisions in
Europe and the difficulty of providing for a ‘stop line’ when the forces did not
exist to enforce it. See also DEFE4/14 COS (48)96 9 July 1948.
31 DEFE4/16 COS(48) 124 8 Sept. 1948 confirms the British military belief in the
impossibility of defending the Rhine.
32 For interpretations of NSC 68 that relate Cold War policies to hot war ones, see
John W. Young and J. Kent, International Relations since 1945 A Global History
(2004).
33 DEFE4/30 COS(50) 49 24 Mar. 1950.
34 It is vital to be aware of the distinction between these terms in the military
assumptions of the early 1950s on both sides of the Atlantic. Most interpreta-
tions of military policy and the rearmament implemented in the wake of the
Korean War are seen in foreign policy Cold War terms and the interpretations
of NSC 68 fail to understand it.
35 CAB 131/9 DO(50)45 7 June 1950.
36 DEFE 4/32 COS(50) 84th, Annex, 7 June 1950, Minute by Brigadier C Price
(Secretary to COS Committee) to the C’s-in-c Middle East, 31 May 1950.
37 CAB 131/9 DO(50)45 7 June 1950.
38 DEFE 4/25 COS(49)154 19 Oct. 1949.
39 CAB 131/9 DO(50)45 7 June 1950.
40 Amongst the many works on ANZUS for documents, see R. Holdich, V.
Johnson and P. Andre (eds), ANZUS Treaty 1951 (2000).
41 CAB131/11 DO(51)70 2 June 1951.
42 DEFE 5/20 COS(50)141 28 Apr. 1950.
43 DEFE 5/24 COS(50)363 15 Sept. 1950.
44 CAB 129/43 CP(50)310 12 Dec. 1950.
70 J. Kent
45 FO 371/90176, Cairo to FO 5 Feb. 1951.
46 DEFE 4/38 COS(50)210 19 Dec. 1950; DEFE 5/29 COS(51)129 22 Mar. 1951.
47 CAB 129/45 CP(51)95 30 Mar. 1951.
48 CAB 128/19 CM(51)23 2 Apr. 1951.
49 CAB 131/9 DO(50)45 7 June 1950.
50 Ibid.
51 CAB 129/53 C(52)202 18 June 1952.
52 WO 216/459 Memo by Field Marshal Slim 17 Dec. 1951.
53 DEFE 5/35 COS(51) 759 annex 18 Dec. 1951.
54 CAB 131/12 D(52)26 17 June 1952.
55 CAB 131/12 D(52)45 31 Oct. 1952, cited in D. Goldsworthy (ed.), BDEEP
Series A Volume 3 The Conservative Government and the End of Empire 1951–57
Part I (1994), 36–7.
56 These in Feb 1952 were deemed to be a total of 96 divisions; M. Dockrill,
British Defence since 1945 (Oxford, 1988), 50.
57 See D. Goldsworthy (ed.) op cit 26–36, 39–41, citing CAB 129/55 C(52)316 3t
1952, CAB 129/55 C(52)320 3 Oct. 1952, CAB 129/56 C(52)39 3 Nov. 1952.
58 See CAB 129/59 C(53)65 Cabinet Memo by Eden 16 Feb. 1953.
59 DEFE 4/77 COS(55)51 27 June 1955.
60 The Australians agreed to provide two squadrons in 1952 and the New Zealan-
ders one in 1953.
61 For the MEC, see J. Kent (ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire, lxii–lxviii.
62 FRUS 1952–1954 The Near and Middle East Vol. IX Pt I 379–86.
63 DEFE 4/66 COS(53)124 3 Nov. 1953.
64 DEFE 4/72 COS(54)92 27Aug. 1954 JP(54)58 24 Aug. 1954.
65 DEFE 4/72 COS(54)92 27 Aug. 1954 Record of Lt-Gen. Sir Neville Brown-
john’s (VCIGS) remarks.
66 DEFE 5/47 COS(54)332 9 July 1953; DEFE 5/47 COS(53)336 11July 1953.
67 DEFE 4/70 COS(54)53 10 May 1954.
68 DEFE 4/72 COS(54)94 6 Sep. 1954.
69 DEFE 4/77 COS(55)50 27 June 1955.
70 FO 371/115488 Minute by J G Ward 2 Feb. 1955.
71 CO 1032/51 and June 1956 cited in Goldsworthy Doc 26.
72 CAB 129/84 CP(57)6 5 Jan 1957 cited in Goldsworthy Doc 28.
4 The Treasury and defence
of empire
George Peden

The Treasury’s influence on imperial defence is often overlooked, as can

be seen from the very different treatment accorded to it in different
volumes of the Oxford History of the British Empire. In the nineteenth-
century volume, finance is described as central to the resolution of stra-
tegic choices, and examples are given of Chancellors of the Exchequer,
Gladstone and Disraeli, successfully curbing army and navy expenditure.1
In the twentieth-century volume, there is only a passing reference to
Treasury ministers pointing out the huge disparity between Britain’s mili-
tary commitments and her financial resources in the late 1940s.2 There is
no mention of Treasury control of defence expenditure between the wars,
although that is the period for which complaints by military historians
about ‘Treasury meanness’ are most common.3 There is nothing on the
Treasury in the chapters on imperial defence and the Royal Navy (RN)
and the British Empire in the historiographical volume.4
The Treasury’s influence can be understood only in the context of its
role, which evolved over the period covered by this book.5 The Chancellor
of the Exchequer is responsible not only for taxation and public loans, but
also for controlling central government’s expenditure. One of the conven-
tions of a parliamentary system of government is that money for central
government expenditure should be voted in advance by the House of
Commons, sitting as the Committee of Supply, and audited to ensure that
it has been spent as voted. Each spring departments submit to Parliament
estimates for expenditure in the coming financial year (starting in April).
In 1861, Gladstone won the Cabinet’s agreement to the principle that the
estimates should be subject to detailed criticism by the Treasury before
Parliament was asked to approve them, to ensure that the taxpayer would
be getting value for money. However, the Admiralty and War Office esti-
mates were regarded as highly confidential and went to the Cabinet
without previous discussion with Treasury officials, who normally had less
opportunity to criticize proposals for defence expenditure than in the
case of civil departments, who consulted the Treasury in advance of their
estimates going to the Cabinet. Even so, the Chancellor would delay
Cabinet approval until his officials had had the opportunity to compare
72 G. Peden
the estimates with previous years’ expenditure. The defence departments
were brought into line with civil departments after the Cabinet agreed in
1919 that it would not consider new proposals for expenditure until the
Treasury had approved them or until the responsible minister had indi-
cated his intention to appeal to the Cabinet against a Treasury decision.
The Chancellor did not have the power of veto, but he could warn
Cabinet colleagues of the consequences of increased expenditure. In prac-
tice, the power of the Treasury rested on the convention of the balanced
budget. So long as an increase in one department’s expenditure meant
either an increase in taxation or less money for other departments, the
Chancellor was not short of allies among Cabinet ministers. However, if
Parliament authorized borrowing for expenditure, as in wartime or for
some specific purpose, as for example, warship construction under the
Naval Defence Act of 1892, or for rearmament before the Second World
War, it was harder for the Treasury to impose restraint.
The estimates were set out in considerable detail and were divided into
a series of ‘votes’: for example, in the case of the Admiralty, there would be
one for pay, one for stores, one for new construction and so on. Under-
spending in one vote could be used to balance overspending in another,
provided that the Treasury granted the power of virement. Otherwise, when
a department wished to exceed its estimates during the financial year, it had
to ask the Treasury for a supplementary estimate which would then be sub-
mitted to the Cabinet and Parliament for approval. Since not all proposals
included in the annual estimates could be examined in detail before they
were submitted to Parliament, the Treasury would reserve some matters for
further consideration, and if it later found that a proposal was wasteful or
did not conform to government policy, it would withhold approval, and the
money could not be spent, even although already voted by Parliament,
unless the minister in question appealed successfully to the Cabinet.
Detailed examination of the estimates usually secured some economies, but
the Treasury’s most effective approach was to limit the total amount of
money available for a department’s estimates, thereby forcing the experts
within that department to cut out the less-essential proposals.
Prior to the First World War, the Treasury did not claim the right to
question policy when examining the estimates, and Treasury control was
concerned solely with financial prudence. The Chancellor could discuss
policy, as a member of the Cabinet or its sub-committees, but it was only
after the First World War that officials began systematically to brief
the Chancellor with arguments as to what policy should be. By then the
Treasury was evolving from being purely a ministry of finance to being
concerned with the economy as a whole, and Treasury control had become
concerned with making the best possible use of resources, including
industrial capacity, as well as with money. In 1919, when the Cabinet
was concerned about reducing high levels of wartime expenditure, the
Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, Sir Warren Fisher, argued that major
 Treasury and defence of empire 73
economies could be achieved only by making changes in policy. He tried to
make the Treasury the central department of government, coordinating
policy through financial control, and from 1933 he took an active interest
in the formulation of defence and foreign affairs. While he did not wish
the Treasury to supplant the spending departments, he thought that Treas-
ury officials should form ‘constructive views on policy questions’.6 In
theory, defence policy was coordinated by the Committee of Imperial
Defence, first created in 1904, and which in the interwar period had repre-
sentatives of three independent defence services, the navy, the army and
the air force, plus the Foreign Office (FO) and the Treasury. In practice,
the lack of a Ministry of Defence left the Treasury with an important
coordinating role through the control of expenditure. Even when a Min-
istry of Defence was established in 1947, the three defence services retained
considerable autonomy until the Sandys reforms of 1957–8, and even
later.7 Chancellors, briefed by their officials, continued to have an input
into the formulation of policy for as long as the combined demands of the
services were too great for the national economy to bear.
The subsections of this chapter follow the evolution of Treasury control
over defence expenditure. The next section deals with the period
1856–1914, when the Treasury was concerned solely with financial pru-
dence. Further sections deal with the period 1914–1939, when the Treas-
ury lost control of expenditure during the First World War, then regained
it, and then with a similar cycle over the period 1939–1956.

1856–1914
Although the Treasury’s parsimony was expressed in financial terms down
to 1914, it had an economic basis. Government expenditure on non-pro-
ductive activities, like defence, was believed to divert money from private
enterprise, the source of the increasing wealth (and taxable capacity) of
the community. In a memorable dictum, Gladstone declared that ‘money
should be left to fructify in the pockets of the taxpayer’.8 The recent
debate between historians on the costs and benefits of the British Empire
has some bearing on the wisdom or otherwise of Treasury parsimony.
Lance Davis and Robert Huttenback, in a seminal work, calculated that
the costs, particularly the taxation necessary for imperial defence, out-
weighed the benefits.9 Patrick O’Brien has supported this point of view,
arguing that imperial defence led to an ‘inflated military establishment’
and diverted military resources from the principal threat to British secur-
ity by the early twentieth-century Germany.10 On the other hand, Paul
Kennedy and Avner Offer have countered that the cost of imperial
defence was not particularly burdensome when compared with the
defence establishments of other powers, given that Britain had a higher
income per capita than other European countries. Moreover, Kennedy
has pointed out that France and Russia, not Germany, were the principal
74 G. Peden
threats to British security in the nineteenth century, and Offer has drawn
attention to the fact that the empire was a strategic asset that served
Britain well in the First World War, both in terms of raw materials and
manufactures and in terms of military manpower.11 For the purposes of an
examination of the Treasury’s influence, one may conclude that defence
of empire was at least potentially a burden on the British economy and that
there was a case for Treasury parsimony to minimize that burden.
Defence expenditure was higher after the Crimean War than it had
been before: £24.9 million in 1860 compared with £15.1 million in 1850.
The suppression of the Indian mutiny (1857–9) and war with China
(1856–60) had delayed economies in the defence of empire. However,
Gladstone embarked on an economy campaign, and by 1870 defence
expenditure was down to £21.5 million. It became harder for the Treasury
to continue downward pressure on the defence estimates thereafter, as
revenue rose and the cost of servicing the national debt was reduced,
partly by debt redemption but mainly through a conversion operation in
1888 that reduced the interest rate payable on Consols, the most import-
ant gilt-edged stock. It was thus difficult for the Treasury to resist demands
for increased expenditure during the naval scare originally got up by the
journalist W. T. Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1884, and by 1898 defence
expenditure had reached £40.2 million. The Boer War proved to be very
expensive, the cost peaking in 1902 at £123.3 million, and the defence
estimates never returned to their 1898 level. In 1904, the Conservative
Chancellor, Austen Chamberlain, told the Cabinet that ‘we must frankly
admit that the financial resources of the United Kingdom are inadequate
to do all that we should desire in the matter of Imperial defence’.12
However, a naval arms race with Germany frustrated the Treasury’s efforts
to reduce defence expenditure, which rose from £58.2 million in 1908 to
£72.5 million in 1913.
It is difficult to work out how much was spent on the defence of empire,
as opposed to the defence of the United Kingdom or its trade routes.
About half of the army was deployed overseas, maintaining or expanding
the empire, and the money voted for the army or the ordnance exceeded
the money voted for the navy until 1896 and also during the Boer War and
its aftermath. The Victorian and Edwardian navy tended to be expensive
because it had different functions that, after the adoption of steam for
major warships in 1850 and the introduction of the ironclad in 1860,
required largely incompatible types of ships. Armoured vessels, with
limited range without refuelling, were required in European waters. On
the other hand, imperial policing was carried out mainly by unarmoured
vessels, with longer range. Some ships, frigates or cruisers had a dual
purpose, being suitable for scouting for the fleet, trade protection, and
defence of empire, but there is no doubt that Britain’s world-wide commit-
ments necessitated a much larger navy than those of powers whose inter-
ests were more concentrated. Gladstone argued in 1864 that steamships
 Treasury and defence of empire 75
and the expanding electric telegraph system made it unnecessary to main-
tain as many ships overseas as hitherto, and the number was cut from 135
to 120 by 1868.13 Even so, as late as December 1904, an Admiralty paper
submitted to Parliament admitted that ‘the principles, on which the
present peace distribution of HM ships and the arrangements of their sta-
tions are based, date from a period when the electric telegraph did not
exist and when wind was the motive power’.14
The Treasury, as the guardian of the British taxpayer, tried to impose as
much of the cost of the defence of empire as possible on the colonial tax-
payer and thereby provoked frequent disputes with the Colonial Office
and between the British government and the colonies. It proved to be pos-
sible to extract contributions towards the cost of British forces from
dependent colonies like India, Ceylon, Hong Kong and the Straits Settle-
ments, but the self-governing colonies like Australia, New Zealand, Natal
and Cape Colony contributed less, and Canada not at all. Even dependent
colonies might be too poor to pay much towards the cost of military opera-
tions on their territory: for example, Sierra Leone paid only two-thirds of
expenses incurred in 1898–9, and then only after a delay of several years.
In the cases of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the solution was to
withdraw British troops, the process being initiated in the 1840s and com-
pleted by 1871; not even a Maori war could stay the Treasury’s demand for
economy. India alone made a contribution to the defence of empire
outside its own territory or adjacent waters.15
Two other factors impeded the Treasury’s quest for economy in the
defence of empire. There were frequent wars: the Zulu War (1879), the
second Afghan War (1879–81), the first Boer War (1880–1), the occupa-
tion of Egypt (1882), the conquest of the Sudan (1898) and the second
Boer War (1899–1902), all of which were financed largely out of loans,
with the cost to the taxpayer following only at an interval through servic-
ing the national debt. From the 1860s, technical developments such as
the introduction of the breech-loading rifle, machine guns, and greatly
improved artillery made it difficult to argue against War Office proposals
for re-equipment. On the other hand, the need to keep the annual esti-
mates within what could be afforded within a balanced budget could
force soldiers to make choices as to priorities. Considerable gains in effi-
ciency seem to have been made between 1905 and 1912, while
R. B. Haldane was Secretary of State for War, without any increase in the
estimates.16 In the case of the Admiralty, continuous innovation in naval
technology from 1860 meant that major warships were obsolescent about
ten years after they had been built, and again it was difficult to argue
against the need for new construction even if there were frequent battles
over how many ships should be laid down. The Admiralty was not above
trying to pull wool over the Treasury’s eyes. One officer, who had been
on the staff of Naval Intelligence, recalled that he had been asked to
compile a statement of the combined strengths of the French and
76 G. Peden
Russian navies, with a view to wringing more money out of the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer. He therefore included obsolete and useless vessels,
but on that occasion the Chancellor, Sir William Harcourt (1892–5), was
not deceived and struck out these vessels with his blue pencil.17 The
Treasury’s parsimony appears to have led to better value for money in the
1860s and 1870s, when obsolete ships were decommissioned to release
funds for new construction, than in the naval scares of the 1880s and
1890s, when the estimates increased rapidly. When Sir John Fisher was
appointed first sea lord in 1904, with orders to reduce the estimates, he
was able to identify no fewer than 154 ships that were too old to fight or
too slow to run away and which he recommended should be scrapped.18

1914–1939
During the First World War, defence expenditure was financed out of votes
of credit, the Treasury being empowered by Parliament to borrow as much
as was required over and above tax receipts. The defence departments were
thereby released from the constraint of balanced budgets and the Treasury
exercised little control over war-related expenditure. As a consequence,
prices of munitions rose by more than they need have done as different ser-
vices competed for the same scarce industrial resources. In the long run,
the Treasury’s position in Whitehall was to be strengthened after the war,
when balanced budgets and severe economy in public expenditure became
politically necessary, both to curb inflation and to cut taxes.19 During the
war, although the Chancellor took part in Cabinet discussions of strategy,
he was unable to prevent a radical shift away from pre-war plans, whereby
Britain’s military effort would have been limited to sending the existing
expeditionary force to France, and, as in previous wars, her wealth would be
used to finance her allies’ armies. In the First World War, Britain attempted
to maintain both a mass army and to subsidize her allies. Opposition to con-
scription was led by the Chancellor, Reginald McKenna, and the President
of the Board of Trade, Walter Runciman, on the grounds that further diver-
sion of labour from industry than had already occurred through voluntary
recruitment would limit Britain’s ability to produce munitions and would
cripple exports, and thereby Britain’s ability to finance essential imports.
The arguments used by McKenna when presenting his case to a Cabinet
committee on war policy in August 1915 had been drafted by a young econ-
omist, John Maynard Keynes, who had been recruited from Cambridge to
serve as a Treasury official. The Treasury case was that Britain could wage
war for ten years if industry were not depleted of labour, but that conscrip-
tion would lead to national bankruptcy. The Minister of Munitions, Lloyd
George, and his supporters believed that an enlarged army of 70 divisions
was necessary to prevent defeat, and hoped that victory could be won by the
end of 1916, before bankruptcy occurred.20 The conscriptionists’ case pre-
vailed, with the consequence that Britain became increasingly dependent
 Treasury and defence of empire 77
upon imports of munitions from the United States, for which she could only
pay by the temporary expedient of borrowing dollars, first from the Amer-
ican public and then, after the entry of the United States into the war in
1917, from the American government. Over the world as a whole, Britain’s
overseas assets were reduced and short-term indebtedness increased, leaving
sterling vulnerable to a loss of confidence. Moreover, Britain lost export
markets, some of them permanently, with long-term damage to the
economy.21 After the war, the Treasury’s view that industrial investment and
exports must have first call on national resources was accepted by the
Cabinet, reinforcing the pressure for economy in all forms of public expen-
diture, including defence.22
In August 1919, the Cabinet, at the urging of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Austen Chamberlain, decided that the defence departments
should assume when preparing their estimates for future expenditure that
‘the British Empire will not be engaged in any great war during the next
ten years, and that no Expeditionary Force is required for this purpose.’23
Historians for long commonly assumed that, as a result of this decision, the
Treasury held the ‘whip hand’ in disputes with the defence departments
whenever any request for increased expenditure was put forward.24
However, John Ferris has convincingly argued that, in the cases of
the Admiralty and the Air Ministry, it was only after 1924 that service pol-
icies came to be dominated by the Treasury.25 The War Office intended to
reproduce the pre-war army at an estimated annual cost of £62 million in
1920; the Treasury managed to bring this figure down to £45 million,
following a Cabinet decision at the end of 1920 to evacuate Iran and to
halve the garrisons in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq.26 On the other hand, the
search for economies in imperial defence gave the Royal Air Force (RAF)
the opportunity to show that air power could maintain order in Iraq and
elsewhere more cheaply than ground forces alone could do.27 The
Cabinet’s decision in 1919 that the size of the navy should not exceed that
of the pre-war, one-power standard (which excluded comparison with the
United States) was interpreted six different ways by the Admiralty between
1919 and 1925, each interpretation pointing towards a different policy,
and the net result of which was that Britain maintained a battle fleet equal
to that of the United States and 167 per cent of that of Japan.28
It fell to Winston Churchill, as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924
to 1929, to attempt to curb the expenditure of the department that he
had headed as first lord from 1911 to 1915. Following the decision not to
renew the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1922, the Admiralty’s plans assumed
that the main British fleet might have to move to the Far East to protect
British interests there, and that therefore there should be a large, forti-
fied, naval base at Singapore, together with adequate stocks of fuel along
the route from Britain, as well as a submarine base at Hong Kong.
Churchill professed in 1924 to believe that there was not the ‘slightest
chance’ of war with Japan ‘in our lifetime’ (a prophecy that did not find
78 G. Peden
its way into his memoirs) and argued that the only war worth fighting in
the Far East would be one to prevent an invasion of Australia. In
Churchill’s view, a war with Japan over Hong Kong would last for years,
reducing Britain to bankruptcy and exposing the empire to threats from
unfriendly powers.29 He thought that it was not necessary for the defences
at Singapore to be complete for another 15–20 years and believed that ‘a
squadron of battle-cruisers or a fast division of battleships’ could act as an
effective deterrent; in the event of war, this force would avoid battle until
the superior Japanese forces had been reduced by submarines, mines, air-
craft or coastal defences. These ideas helped to shape Treasury views on
the Singapore strategy for the rest of the interwar period, besides antici-
pating Churchill’s policy in 1941.30 Meanwhile, in March 1925, Churchill
secured a ruling from the Committee of Imperial Defence that the navy
should not prepare for a campaign in the Far East before 1935; in 1927
and 1928, he cut the cruiser programme; and in the latter year he per-
suaded the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Cabinet to restate the
ten-year rule so that, at any given date, it would be assumed that there
would be no major war for ten years.31 This ten-year rule was not abro-
gated until March 1932, after Japan had invaded Manchuria the previous
September. Meanwhile, although work at Singapore had proceeded
slowly, delayed in part by disputes over whether the base should be
defended by guns or aircraft, construction was too far advanced for the
incoming Labour government and its impeccably orthodox Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, to cancel it in 1929. However, the domin-
ions were persuaded at the Imperial Conference in 1930 to accept a post-
ponement of further work on the docks and on the base’s defences,
pending a further review in 1935.32
Even when agreeing to end the ten-year rule, the Cabinet accepted the
point made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain,
that defence expenditure should not be increased without regard to the
risk to the country’s financial stability. The slump and international finan-
cial crisis of 1931 had brought about the fall of the Labour government
and the election of a National Government committed to taking Britain
safely through the economic crisis. The balanced budget remained the
test of good financial housekeeping, leading to severe economy in all
forms of government expenditure: 1932 was the low point in the defence
estimates, and the 1929/30 level of defence expenditure, £113 million,
was not reached again until 1934/5. The pace of rearmament thereafter
was restricted by the Treasury so long as it was Cabinet policy to give eco-
nomic stability priority over armed defence. Policymakers had to balance
two risks: if rearmament were too rapid it might undermine the economy
by diverting production away from exports; if it were too slow Britain
might not be ready for war if and when it came. The report of the Chief-
of-Staff’s (COS) sub-committee on planning for a war with Germany had
assumed in 1937 that Germany would be less well placed than Britain and
 Treasury and defence of empire 79
France to fight a long war, and for this reason the Treasury claimed that
financial stability was a ‘fourth arm of defence’. It was expected that
Britain would have to rely more on her own financial resources than in
the First World War, because during the depression she had failed to
maintain full repayments on war debts to the United States and she had
been included in the provisions of the Johnson Act of 1934 which prohib-
ited new loans to any government that was in default. From 1937,
however, a rowing adverse balance of payments on current account, fol-
lowed from 1938 by a fall in the gold reserves and depreciation of sterling
against the dollar – all indicated a strain on the economy and a decline in
foreign confidence in Britain’s financial stability. Treasury control over
the defence departments’ expenditure began to weaken in 1937, with the
passage of the Defence Loans Act, which removed the constraint of the
balanced budget, but it was not until the spring of 1939 that the Treasury
ceased to be a major influence shaping strategy.33
Fisher and Chamberlain took active parts in a review of the defence
policy in 1933 and 1934, Fisher in the official Defence Requirements Sub-
Committee, generally known by its acronym, the DRC, and Chamberlain
in the ministerial committee which considered its report. The DRC com-
prised the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey (chairman); the COS of
the three defence services: Sir Ernle Chatfield, the first sea lord; Sir
Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd, the Chief of Imperial General Staff,
Sir Edward Ellington, the chief of air staff; Sir Robert Vansittart, perman-
ent under-secretary of the FO, and Fisher. According to a recent study, the
recommendations of the DRC ‘largely determined the path that British
strategic policy took until 1939’.34 The DRC identified Germany as the ulti-
mate potential enemy against whom long-term defence policy should be
planned, while recommending immediate defensive measures against
Japan.35 However, it is difficult to accept that it determined the path of
defence policy, particularly as it related to the defence of empire, what-
ever the report’s significance for foreign policy. As Table 4.1 shows, the
DRC’s recommendations would have preserved the existing pattern of
annual defence expenditure on the air force, army and navy, with the air
force having the smallest share and the navy the biggest. Actual expendi-
ture over the financial years 1934/5 to 1938/9 was much greater than
what had been envisaged in 1934, owing to increasing awareness of the
extent of the danger posed by potential enemies and the urgency with
which the country should rearm. There was also a striking shift in the dis-
tribution of expenditure between the armed services, with the air force
emerging as the clear winner.
This change of emphasis reflected mainly widespread fear in Britain of
air attack.36 However, Treasury influence also helped to shape the course
of defence policy. Chamberlain was an exceptionally powerful chancellor,
being heir apparent of the Conservative party, besides having a strong
personality and a clear, logical mind. During the DRC’s discussions Fisher
80 G. Peden
Table 4.1 Distribution of expenditure by defence departments from 1933/34 to
1938/39

Financial year Annual total (£ms) Percentage shares

Air Force Army Navy

DRC report
1934/5 118.5 14.9 37.7 47.5
1935/6 124.6 15.0 36.0 48.9
1936/7 128.9 15.8 35.1 49.1
1937/8 130.6 16.3 34.8 48.9
1938/9 132.0 16.1 34.6 49.3
Actual expenditure
1933/4 107.9 15.6 34.8 49.6
1934/5 113.9 15.5 34.9 49.7
1935/6 137.0 20.0 32.6 47.3
1936/7 186.1 26.9 29.5 43.6
1937/8 262.1 31.4 29.7 38.9
1938/9 382.5 35.0 31.7 33.3

Sources: First Defence Requirements Report, 28 February 1934, CAB 16/109, TNA, and Sta-
tistical Abstract for the United Kingdom for each of the fifteen years 1924 to 1938 (Cmd.
6232), P.P. 1939–40, x, 367.
Note
Because of rounding up or down, the percentage figures do not always add up to 100.

and Vansittart had unsuccessfully urged greater expansion of the RAF

than Ellington had asked for, and the DRC report had recommended ten
additional squadrons to complete the 52-squadron Home Defence scheme
of 1923; ten additional squadrons of aeroplanes and four of flying boats
for service in the Far East, and 20 additional squadrons for the Fleet Air
Arm. The report stated that a further 25 squadrons would be necessary to
meet ‘all eventual requirements’, but these were not part of the ‘worst
deficiencies’ to be remedied by 1939, although they should be reconsid-
ered if Germany carried out rapid expansion of her air force.37 When the
DRC report was discussed by ministers, Chamberlain produced an alterna-
tive proposal for 38 additional squadrons instead of ten for the Home
Defence Force, but with only three additional squadrons for the Far East,
and with Fleet Air Arm requirements being met by making Home Defence
and Fleet Air Arm squadrons interchangeable. A Cabinet sub-committee
on the allocation of air forces concluded in July 1934 that this last sugges-
tion was impracticable and instead recommended 33 additional squadrons
for Home Defence, four for the Far East and four and a half for the Fleet
Air Arm.38 On balance, the Treasury view that air force expansion should
be for home defence rather than the defence of empire was accepted, and
this pattern was subsequently reinforced as British air rearmament lagged
behind Germany’s. For its part, the Treasury exercised much lighter
 Treasury and defence of empire 81
control over Air Ministry expenditure than over that of the Admiralty or,
much more so, of the War Office. The Air Ministry was even able to persist
with the development of strategic bombers despite instruction from
the Cabinet at the end of 1937 to give priority to fighter defence.39
Chamberlain had intended to find extra money for air force expansion
by cuts or delays in the army and navy programmes. In particular, echoing
Churchill’s earlier ideas, he thought that, while the navy base at Singapore
must be completed, it should be used at present only for submarines and
other light craft, and the idea of sending out a fleet of capital ships capable
of containing the Japanese fleet or meeting it in battle must be
postponed.40 Fisher and Chamberlain believed that Britain must try to
restore good relations with Japan, but the Admiralty and the FO doubted
whether this could be done without offending the United States, with
whom good relations were paramount, and Treasury attempts to influence
foreign policy in the direction of securing an understanding with Japan
failed.41 Work on the naval base at Singapore went ahead, with Treasury
support from 1934, and plans to send capital ships to the Far East in the
event of war with Japan continued to be drawn up. Although the Admiralty
was unable to secure Treasury or Cabinet agreement to a two-power stan-
dard, shipbuilding and gun-making capacity, not finance, determined the
speed with which the navy’s new construction programmes were carried
out from 1936, although, of course, industrial capacity would have been
greater had naval expenditure not been reduced by Churchill and
Snowden between 1924 and 1931.42 Under the terms of the London Naval
Treaty of 1930, Britain could not lay down new capital ships until January
1937. However, the Treasury agreed to steps being taken to speed the con-
struction of the new King George V class, two being laid down in the last
three months of the financial year 1936/7 and three more at the begin-
ning of the financial year 1937/8, or five in all in the calendar year 1937,
compared with one, admittedly very large, capital ship laid down that year
by Japan.43 Admiralty expenditure almost doubled between 1933/4 and
1937/8, from £53 million to £102 million.
One consequence of the rapidly expanding air and naval programmes
was to put pressure on the army. In 1934, Chamberlain secured a cut in
the army’s DRC programme from £40 million to £20 million, with the
result that the army’s deficiencies would take more than five years to
repair.44 Then, in January 1937, faced with defence programmes that were
getting ahead of industrial capacity, the Treasury advised Chamberlain
that Treasury control should be restored by setting a maximum figure for
defence expenditure over the next five years, fixing a ‘ration’ for each
defence department. The outcome was a major review of policy con-
ducted by Sir Thomas Inskip, who had been appointed minister for
coordination of defence the previous year, with Hankey drafting much of
Inskip’s interim report of 15 December 1937. Chatfield, who was chair-
man of the COS Committee as well as first sea lord, was another major
82 G. Peden
influence on the report. He accepted the Treasury’s argument that ever-
growing defence programmes would lead to national bankruptcy and
believed that the country could not afford an army prepared for war on
the European conflict in addition to the navy and air force essential for
the security of the United Kingdom and the empire. Both Chatfield and
Hankey thought that the role of the army should be confined to the mili-
tary requirements of the empire. The influence of the Treasury on
Inskip’s interim report lay in persuading him and his advisers that the
defence forces being created by rearmament should not exceed what
could be maintained for a long period – since the purpose of rearmament
was to deter Germany, not to prepare for war at a given date – and stra-
tegic priorities were determined outside the Treasury.45 Inskip’s interim
report stated that the cornerstone of imperial defence policy must be to
maintain the security of the United Kingdom, where the empire’s main
strength in terms of manpower and industrial capacity lay. It followed, he
said, that the first and major effort should be directed to protection of the
United Kingdom against attack and to preserving the trade routes for
essential imports of food and raw materials. The third objective should be
maintenance of forces for the defence of British overseas territories
against attack by sea, land or air; this objective was less important than the
first two, since so long as the United Kingdom was secure ‘we may hope in
time to repair any losses or defeats suffered elsewhere’. A fourth objec-
tive, which could be provided only after the other three had been met,
was cooperation in the defence of the territories ‘of any allies we may
have in war’.46 These recommendations, accepted by the Cabinet, laid
down that the army’s annual estimates were to be drawn up on the
assumption that an expeditionary force would not be committed to a
European campaign at the beginning of a war.
Inskip’s second report of 8 February 1938, which fixed the defence
department’s financial rations, stated that the army was to be equipped for
‘an Eastern theatre’, which the War Office interpreted as the defence of
Egypt against Italy. It was claimed that the change in the role and composi-
tion of the army’s field units would make possible substantial reductions in
the provision of tanks and in reserves of ammunition compared with what
would be required for European operations.47 The Treasury was not
content with this recommendation, however, one official commenting that
the army had been relieved of the requirement to fight in Europe only for
the FO to conjure up a terrifying picture of an equally arduous African
campaign. At the suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Sir
John Simon, the Cabinet decided that the army should be prepared ‘for
general purposes’ rather than a particular campaign. This decision
enabled the Treasury to hold up War Office proposals that would exceed
what was required for a force of two infantry and one armoured division,
with equipment and reserves on a European scale, but for defensive pur-
poses only, plus two infantry divisions to be ready in 40 days and a further
 Treasury and defence of empire 83
two to be ready after four months after the outbreak of war.48 It was not
until February 1939 that the Cabinet agreed to prepare the Regular Army
for a European campaign at the outset of war and not until April 1939 that
it decided that an enlarged Territorial Army should likewise be prepared to
follow 12 months later.
Michael Howard, in his seminal work, The Continental Commitment,
argued that the defence of empire led to the dissipation of British
strength.49 However, it was the air force, preparing for war with Germany,
not Britain’s wider responsibilities, that diverted scarce industrial
resources from preparing the army for a continental commitment.
Britain’s forces round the empire tended to be the last to receive up-to-
date equipment. The blame for inadequacy of the empire’s defences
could also be laid at the door of the dominions, which carried on the
nineteenth-century practice of leaving the main burden of imperial
defence to the United Kingdom.50
It can be argued that British rearmament could have proceeded much
faster had it not been held up down to 1938 by a policy, supported by the
Board of Trade as well as the Treasury, of not interfering with normal
trade. However, supporters of this view tend to come from the United
States, a country that, because of its rich endowment of natural resources,
has much less reason than the United Kingdom to worry about its balance
of payments, and therefore about the diversion of industrial output from
exports.51 By April 1939, as the balance of payments deficit on current
account increased and as the country’s gold reserves decreased, the Treas-
ury warned the COS that if they were under the impression that Britain
was as well able as in 1914 to conduct a long war, they were burying their
heads in the sand.52

1939–1956
The Treasury’s prediction that Britain would have difficulty financing a
long war was borne out in the Second World War. The Treasury tried to
continue its coordinating role but found it difficult to sustain exports or
to preserve gold and dollar reserves, even during the ‘Phoney War’, and
quite impossible once Churchill had become prime minister on 10 May
1940, determined to pursue victory at any cost. Under Churchill, the
Chancellor was, for a time, not even a member of the War Cabinet. The
Treasury’s task was to scrape together as many dollars as possible through
the sale of British overseas assets, or otherwise, until after Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt had won his third presidential election, in November 1940, and felt
that he could take the risk of pushing the Lend-Lease Act through Con-
gress in March 1941. Even thereafter, Britain had to pay for orders placed
before the Act was passed, and the Americans varied the extent to which
goods were supplied free under Lend-Lease, so as to ensure that Britain’s
gold and dollar reserves were kept low, thereby keeping Britain in a state
84 G. Peden
of dependence. Moreover, Britain had to pay for supplies from the rest of
the world, including the empire and Commonwealth, which she did by
piling up debts known as sterling balances, which were to contribute to
sterling’s weakness after the war.53 Keynes, who was advising the Chancel-
lor, pointed out in May 1945 that a large part of military expenditure
leading to this indebtedness had been unrelated to the war against
Germany, being for the purposes of fighting Japan, policing the Middle
East or maintaining lines of communication. He warned that lack of
restraint on overseas expenditure was increasing Britain’s dependence
upon the United States to the point where an attempt to do without an
American aid after the war would necessitate ‘withdrawal, for the time
being, from the position of a first-class Power in the outside world’.54 After
the Lend-Lease Act was abruptly cancelled at the end of the war with
Japan in August, Keynes was sent to Washington to negotiate the Anglo-
American Loan Agreement, which gave Britain a brief breathing space but
did not prevent repeated balance-of-payments crises as Britain effected a
transition from a war economy.55
Post-war chancellors tried to reduce Britain’s commitments to the
defence of empire to a level that would not impinge adversely on the
economy. In February 1946, Hugh Dalton circulated to the Cabinet a
memorandum, drafted by Keynes, in which it was estimated that, on
current trends, military expenditure outside Europe might cost anything
from £600 million to £750 million in the three years 1946–8, compared
with the American line of credit of £937 million, which was expected to
last the six years 1946–51. Keynes posed the question: ‘How do we propose
to reply to the Egyptian demand that we take our troops out of Egypt? Is it
appreciated that we are paying the cost of keeping them there by borrow-
ing it from Egypt?’56 Dalton hoped that if his Cabinet colleagues accepted
that Britain lacked the resources to keep open the Mediterranean route in
time of war, they would also agree that troops need not be maintained in
the Suez Canal Zone or the rest of the Middle East. However, although
the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, talked of withdrawing to a line from
Lagos to Kenya, Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, strongly supported
the COS when they argued that Britain must remain a Mediterranean
power. During 1946 and the first half of 1947, when the government’s
hopes of economic recovery focused on overcoming the shortage of indus-
trial and agricultural workers, Bevin obstinately resisted any reduction in
Britain’s armed forces or overseas commitments, and such was the
strength of his position in the Labour government that his view prevailed
until after a failed attempt at making sterling convertible in July 1947
highlighted the weakness of Britain’s position. In September, the
Cabinet’s Defence Committee agreed to a reduction in the strength of the
armed forces from 1,217,000 to 713,000 by March 1949, a step that was
said to involve ‘serious risks and political consequences’, although the
strength of the armed forces in mid-1939 had been only 480,000.57
 Treasury and defence of empire 85
The Treasury’s attempts at reducing the resources devoted to defence
were reversed in 1950 as a result of the outbreak of the Korean War in
June that year. To the dismay of Treasury officials, Hugh Gaitskell, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, was in favour of rearmament, to show the
United States that Britain was a reliable ally. He took the lead in persuad-
ing the Cabinet to accept in January 1951 a £4,700 million programme
for 1951/2 to 1953/4, although only six months earlier the Cabinet had
been told that £3,400 million over three years was the maximum physi-
cally possible without additional controls over the economy. Unfortu-
nately, expectations that American aid would overcome the
balance-of-payments constraint were disappointed, and a severe sterling
crisis followed in 1951–2, mainly as a result of the rise in import prices
that resulted from rearmament in other countries, principally the United
States. What rearmament did was to divert British industry from exports
just as the effects of renewed German competition began to be felt.58
The consequent weakening of the overstretched British economy in the
1950s shows how rearmament – even with controls over the economy –
can reduce a country’s capacity to support the armed forces that it is
creating. The proportion of Britain’s gross domestic product devoted
to defence expenditure had risen from 5.8 per cent in 1949/50 to
8.7 per cent in 1952/3 and was still as high as 7.9 per cent in 1954/5 and
7.2 per cent in 1956/7; in 1938/9, it had been about 8 per cent.59
The aftermath of rearmament was a painful period of adjustment for
the armed forces, as Treasury control was gradually reasserted and defence
departments had to cut back on their programmes. The Treasury was not
alone in thinking that the burden of overseas defence expenditure con-
tinued to be a source of weakness for the balance of payments.60 Among
the economies was a withdrawal from the Suez Canal Zone. The COS
themselves had come round to the view by 1952 that, without willing
Egyptian cooperation, the base there was more of a liability than an asset.
With R. A. Butler, chancellor of the exchequer, warning about Britain’s
fragile external financial position, and the need to cut defence expendi-
ture, the Chiefs favoured running down the base and transferring some of
its functions to Cyprus.61 An agreement to withdraw British troops from
Egypt was signed in October 1954, and the last men left in June 1956.
The Suez crisis, following the nationalization of the Canal by the
Egyptian dictator, Colonel Nasser, in July 1956, revealed the extent to
which the weakness of sterling could undermine the efforts of the armed
forces. Britain and France, acting in collusion with Israel, tried to topple
Nasser, starting with air attacks on 31 October, followed by the landing of
an Anglo-French expeditionary force at Port Said on 5 November.
However, the following day the United States used Britain’s need for
American support for sterling to insist on a ceasefire, and Britain and
France were compelled to withdraw their forces in December. Treasury
officials had warned the Chancellor, Harold Macmillan, and the Prime
86 G. Peden
Minister, Anthony Eden, in April that foreign confidence in sterling was
so weak that pressure for devaluation might become irresistible at some
point between August and November. Inflationary pressures, and in
particular, demands for higher wages, were creating doubt about British
industry’s ability to compete in international markets, and the Suez crisis
added to the uncertainty. Macmillan was told more than once by Treas-
ury officials in August and September that it was vital that Britain should
not act against Egypt without American support. On the basis of informal
talks that he had in America in September, Macmillan seems to have
believed that American support would be forthcoming, and when it was
not, he felt that he had no option but to advise the Cabinet to acquiesce
in American demands. British vulnerability to American pressure was
greater than it might have been, because Treasury officials and the Bank
of England had been kept in the dark about the government’s intention
to invade Egypt and had consequently not approached the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) for a standby credit beforehand, as the French had
done. Moreover, Britain was due to make her annual repayment under
the Anglo-American Loan Agreement of 1945 in December. Without
American support, there was no prospect of a successful application to
the IMF for a credit to offset heavy selling of sterling and a consequent
fall in Britain’s gold and dollar reserves. The alternative would have been
to allow sterling to float, but in an era of fixed exchange rates, such
action would have been regarded as the equivalent of devaluation. There
had been a devaluation of sterling as recently as 1949, and another one
would probably have led to the break-up of the sterling area, which at the
time was regarded as an important bond holding most of the
Commonwealth together.62

Conclusion
The principal function of the Treasury in relation to defence was to
warn ministers of the financial and, from 1915, the economic con-
sequences of proposals for increased expenditure. In 1937, the Inskip
report noted that:

In considering whether we can afford this or that programme, the

first question asked is how much the programme will cost; and the
cost of the programme is then related to the sums which can be made
available from Exchequer resources, from taxation, or exceptionally
from the proceeds of loans. But the fact that the problem is con-
sidered in terms of money, must not be allowed to obscure the fact
that our real resources consist not of money, i.e., paper pounds, which
are nothing more than a symbol, but of our man power, and produc-
tive capacity, our power to maintain our credit, and the general
balance of our trade.63
 Treasury and defence of empire 87
Twenty years later, the 1957 Defence White Paper stated:

Britain’s influence in the world depends first and foremost on the

health of her internal economy and the success of her export trade.
Without these, military power cannot in the long run be supported. It
is therefore in the true interests of defence that the claims of military
expenditure should be considered in conjunction with the need to
maintain the country’s financial and economic strength.64

The Inskip report has not been well regarded by military historians
because it was overtaken by events. It was designed to plan defence expen-
diture in future years in a way that would ensure that the British economy
would not be undermined by the process of rearmament over five years or
by creating armed forces that would be too large to maintain in the long
term. It was not designed as a plan for war in 1939. The 1957 Defence
White Paper had its controversial aspects in relation to defence policy, but
few would doubt that the British economy was disadvantaged in the early
1950s from having to bear a greater proportion of its national product
devoted to defence than other European countries.65 Long-run deterrence,
which was the aim of British defence policy in the 1950s, had to take
account of what defences the country could afford to sustain indefinitely.
Treasury control was originally designed to ensure that the defence
departments were as economical as possible. From 1919, the Treasury
engaged in debate on what policy should be, and, although Treasury inter-
ventions must often have been intensely irritating to other departments,
the lack of an effective ministry of defence created a need for some body in
Whitehall to ensure that strategists were thinking clearly about priorities.

Notes
1 P. Burroughs, ‘Defence and imperial disunity’, in A. Porter (ed.), The Oxford
History of the British Empire, vol. III, The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999),
320–45, at 320, 327–8, 332–3.
2 A. Clayton, ‘ “Deceptive might”: imperial defence and security, 1900–1968’, in
J. M. Brown and W. R. Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol.
IV, The Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1999), 280–305, at 294.
3 See, for example, C. Barnett, Britain and Her Army (London, 1970), 421, and B.
Bond, British Military Policy between the Two World Wars (Oxford, 1980), 39, 135–6.
4 B. M. Gough, ‘The RN and the British Empire’ and D. Killingray, ‘Imperial
defence’, in R. W. Winks (ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. V, His-
toriography (Oxford, 1999), 327–41 and 342–53.
5 What follows is based on G. C. Peden, ‘From cheap government to efficient
government: the political economy of public expenditure in the UK,
1832–1914’, in D. Winch and P. K. O’Brien (eds), The Political Economy of British
Historical Experience, 1688–1914 (Oxford, 2002), 351–78, and G. C. Peden, The
Treasury and British Public Policy, 1906–1959 (Oxford, 2000).
6 G. C. Peden, ‘Sir Warren Fisher and British rearmament against Germany’,
English Historical Review, 94 (1979), 29–47, at 30.
88 G. Peden
7 See F. A. Johnson, Defence by Committee: The Origins and Early Development of the
British Committee of Imperial Defence, 1885–1959 (London, 1960); F. A. Johnson,
Defence by Ministry: The British Ministry of Defence 1944–1974 (New York, 1980).
8 E. Bridges, Treasury Control (London, 1950), 6.
9 L. E. Davis and R. A. Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire: The Polit-
ical Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cambridge, 1986).
10 P. K. O’Brien, ‘The costs and benefits of British imperialism 1846–1914’, Past
and Present, 120 (1988), 163–200, at 193, 199.
11 P. Kennedy, ‘The costs and benefits of British imperialism 1846–1914’, Past
and Present, 125 (1989), 186–92; A. Offer, ‘The British Empire, 1870–1914: a
waste of money?’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 46 (1993), 215–38.
12 J. T. Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval
Policy (London, 1993), 24–5.
13 J. F. Beeler, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone–Disraeli Era, 1866–1880
(Stanford, 1997), 6–8, 34–5.
14 Distribution and Mobilization of the Fleet (Cd. 2335), Parliamentary Papers (PP)
1905, vol. XLVIII, 176–81.
15 Davis and Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 145–60.
16 E. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902 (Manchester, 1992); E. Spiers,
Haldane: An Army Reformer (Edinburgh, 1980).
17 Sir Seymour Fortescue, Looking Back (London, 1920), cited in T. C. Campbell,
‘Sound finance: Gladstone and British government finance, 1880–1895’, Ph.D.
(London, 2004), 193.
18 A. J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in
the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1905 (London, 1940), 491.
19 K. Burk, ‘The Treasury: from impotence to power’, in K. Burk (ed.), War and
the State: The Transformation of British Government, 1914–1919 (London, 1982),
84–107.
20 D. French, British Strategy and War Aims 1914–1916 (London, 1986), 74, 116–22,
131; R. Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed, 1883–1920 (London,
1983), 305–11.
21 B. W. E. Alford, Britain and the World Economy since 1880 (London: Longman,
1996), 107–9; A. S. Milward, The Economic Effects of the World Ward on Britain
(London, 1970), 46.
22 Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy, 121–2, 168–9.
23 N. H. Gibbs, History of the Second World War: Grand Strategy, vol. I (London,
1976), 3–5.
24 The expression ‘whip hand’ is from S. Roskill, Naval Policy between the Wars, vol.
I (London, 1968), 215.
25 J. Ferris, The Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919–26 (Basingstoke, 1989),
15–30.
26 Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy, 172.
27 D. Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: the RAF, 1919–1939 (Manchester,
1990).
28 J. Ferris, ‘Treasury control, the ten year rule and British service policies,
1919–1924’, Historical Journal, 30 (1987), 859–83, at 861, 871.
29 Churchill to Stanley Baldwin (prime minister), 15 December 1924, in M.
Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. V, Companion, part 1 (London, 1979), 303–7.
30 R. O’Neill, ‘Churchill, Japan, and British security in the Pacific: 1904–1942’, in
R. Blake and W. R. Louis (eds), Churchill (Oxford, 1993), 275–89, at 278–9,
281, 285–6; G. C. Peden, ‘Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain and the
defence of empire’, in J. B. Hattendorf and M. H. Murfett (eds), The Limita-
tions of Military Power: Essays presented to Professor Norman Gibbs on his Eightieth
Birthday (Basingstoke, 1990), 160–72 and 165–7.
 Treasury and defence of empire 89
31 Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy, 214–15.
32 J. Neidpath, The Singapore Naval Base and the Defence of Britain’s Eastern Empire,
1919–1941 (Oxford, 1981), 103–21.
33 G. C. Peden, British Rearmament and the Treasury, 1932–1939 (Edinburgh, 1979).
34 K. Neilson, ‘The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee, British Strategic
Foreign Policy, Neville Chamberlain and the Path to Appeasement’, English
Historical Review, 118 (2003), 651–84, at 653. This article helpfully reviews the
huge literature on the DRC.
35 Gibbs, History of the Second World War, 93–8.
36 Uri Bialer, The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Politics
1932–1939 (London, 1980).
37 DRC minutes, 30 January, and 16 and 26 February 1934, and DRC report,
paras. 28–9, 28 February 1934, CAB 16/109, The National Archives of the UK,
London (TNA).
38 DCM (32) 120, 20 June 1934, CAB 27/511; CP 193 (34), 16 July 1934, CAB
27/514, TNA.
39 M. Smith, British Air Strategy between the Wars (Oxford, 1984); Peden, British
Rearmament, 130–4, 151–78, 183.
40 DCM (32), 120, para. 15.
41 G. Bennett, ‘British policy in the Far East 1933–1936: Treasury and FO’,
Modern Asian Studies, 26 (1992), 545–68; G. Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic
Relations and the Far East 1933–1939 (London, 2002), 123–5, 134, 136–8, 146–8,
173–7, 180–2.
42 C. M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy between the Wars (Basingstoke,
2000), 59–60, 77–90, 182–3; G. A. H. Gordon, British Seapower and Procurement
between the Wars: a Reappraisal of Rearmament (Basingstoke, 1988).
43 Peden, British Rearmament, 166. For example, the Admiralty had reserved space
for one capital ship at John Brown’s as early as March 1936, and permission to
start work was given in November that year, although the ship was one of those
authorised for the 1937/1938 financial year; H. Peebles, Warshipbuilding on the
Clyde: Naval Orders and the Prosperity of the Clyde Shipbuilding Industry, 1889–1939
(Edinburgh, 1987), 146. The total displacement of the five King George V class
vessels was 175,000 tons; the Japanese Yamato class, at 65,000 tons each, were
the largest battleships ever built.
44 Bond, British Military Policy, 199–208.
45 Peden, British Rearmament, 40–2, 64–5, 122–3, 137–8.
46 ‘Defence Expenditure in Future Years’, CP 316 (37), CAB 24/273, TNA, paras.
41–4.
47 CP 24 (38), CAB 24/274, TNA.
48 Peden, British Rearmament, 143–4.
49 M. Howard, The Continental Commitment: The Dilemma of British Defence Policy in
the Era of the Two World Wars (London, 1972), 100.
50 G. C. Peden, ‘The burden of imperial defence and the continental commit-
ment reconsidered’, Historical Journal, 27 (1984), 405–23.
51 R. P. Shay, British Rearmament in the Thirties: Politics and Profits (Princeton,
1977); J. Ruggiero, Neville Chamberlain: Pride, Prejudice, and Politics (Westport,
1999).
52 G. C. Peden, ‘A matter of timing: the economic background to British foreign
Policy, 1937–1939’, History, 69 (1984), 15–28, at 17. See also R. A. C. Parker,
‘The pound sterling, the American Treasury and British preparations for war,
1938–1939’, English Historical Review, 98 (1983), 261–79.
53 Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy, 303–7, 328–38.
54 D. E. Moggridge (ed.), Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. XXIV
(Basingstoke and Cambridge, 1979), 256–95, at 275.
90 G. Peden
55 See A. Cairncross, Years of Recovery: British Economic Policy 1945–51 (London,
1985).
56 Moggridge (ed.), Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, vol. XXVII (1980),
465–81, at 480.
57 A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary 1945–1951 (London, 1983), 239–45;
G. C. Peden, ‘Economic aspects of British perceptions of power on the eve of
the Cold War’, in J. Becker and F. Knipping (eds), Power in Europe? Great
Britain, France, Italy, and Germany in a Postwar World (Berlin, 1986), 237–61, at
250.
58 Cairncross, Years of Recovery (London, 1985), 214–25, 228–32.
59 L. Pliatzky, Getting and Spending: Public Expenditure, Employment and Inflation
(Oxford, 1984), 15; Peden, ‘Matter of timing’, 25.
60 A. Shonfield, British Economic Policy since the War (Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
1958), 89–98, 102–7; S. Strange, Sterling and British Policy (Oxford, 1971), ch. 6.
61 M. Carver, British Defence Policy since 1945 (London, 1992), 28–9.
62 See L. Johnman, ‘Defending the pound: the economics of the Suez crisis’, in
T. Gorst, L. Johnman and W. S. Lucas (eds), Postwar Britain, 1945–1964: Themes
and Perspectives (London, 1989); D. B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez
Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1991); Peden, The Treasury and British Public Policy, 446–7.
63 CP 316 (37), CAB 24/273, TNA.
64 Defence: Outline of Future Policy (Cmnd 124), PP 1956–57, vol. XXIII, 489–502,
para. 6.
65 NATO Information Service, NATO Facts and Figures (Brussels, 1976), 294.
5 The British Army and the empire,
1856–1956
David French

The British did not maintain a single army to defend their empire, they
maintained several. The roles of the forces raised in the Dominions will be
examined by Brian Farrell in a later chapter. This chapter will explore the
functions of the other land forces that the British raised – the British army
proper that was recruited exclusively in the United Kingdom, the
British–Indian army, the direct descendant of the army of the East India
Company, and the various much-smaller forces such as the Royal West
African Frontier Force (RWAFF) and the King’s African Rifles that the
British raised in their various colonies.
In the century between the end of the Crimean War and the Suez crisis,
these forces performed at least six major functions. They helped to break
down primary resistance to British rule, they represented British authority
by showing the flag, they acted as a reserve force of last resort to assist the
civil power to maintain law and order, they garrisoned the numerous
naval bases and coaling stations, which formed the backbone of the Royal
Navy’s (RN) global reach, they acted as a deterrent to tribal incursions
and Russian aggression along the North West Frontier of India and, very
occasionally, they took part in global wars.
The modernisation of the British army did not begin after the Crimean
War. It was a process that started in the 1830s, for, as Hew Strachan and
others have shown, much of the evidence suggesting that the army had
fallen into torpor after Waterloo, and was rudely awoken by the Crimean
War, was biased. It was collected by radical politicians eager to find a stick
with which to beat the system of aristocratic government, and they were not
too scrupulous about how they went about it.1 But one perennial problem
that both pre-Crimean reformers and those who followed them in the late
1850s and early 1860s had not solved was how to recruit sufficient rank and
file. Soldiers enlisted for a variety of reasons. Some had fallen out with
their family and friends and wanted to start a new life. Others wanted to
travel abroad. Some were attracted by the bright uniform. Many were
unemployed and hungry. But there were powerful countervailing forces
that discouraged men from coming forward. A soldier’s pay compared
badly with that of all but the worst-paid agricultural labourer.2 Barracks
92 D. French
were overcrowded, inhospitable and often unsanitary.3 Above all, the
demands of imperial soldiering meant that a man was likely to have to
spend most of his colour service, fixed at ten years in 1847 in exile over-
seas, far from his family and friends. Although some senior Non-commis-
sioned officers (NCO) did serve for 21 years and so received a pension,
most men left the army in their late twenties or early thirties, often broken
in health and usually without the knowledge of a trade that would enable
them to earn more than the barest living as a civilian.
The recruiting system could barely find the requisite number of men in
normal times. It failed ignominiously in an emergency. This became
apparent in March 1855. The demands of the Crimean War meant that
the army needed 90,000 men, but it could only raise half that number,
and that too only by taking the unusual, and expensive, step of offering
recruits a large bounty and thereby attracting men from the militia into
the line. But this was tantamount to robbing Peter to pay Paul. The expe-
ditionary force sent to the Crimea may have been filled up but only at the
price of denuding the home defence army. Between 1861 and 1867, two
Royal Commissions investigated the shortcomings of the existing system
but failed to recommend more than tinkering with it. It took the shock
administered by Prussia’s victories over Austria in 1866 and France during
1870–1, together with the advent of a Liberal government determined to
reduce the army estimates and ensure that the taxpayer got value for the
money, to open the way to major reforms.4
The Liberal’s reforms came in two tranches; the first was introduced
between 1868 and 1874 by Edward Cardwell and the second between 1880
and 1881 by his Liberal successor, Hugh Childers. The Cardwell–Childers
reforms created an army that was designed to garrison the British Empire,
to be cheaper than its predecessor and to have the capacity to expand
rapidly on the outbreak of a major war. Short service, for seven years with
the colours and five in the Army Reserve, and the reduction in the
number of soldiers serving overseas were intended to attract more recruits
by removing the fear that soldiers would spend most of their adult lives in
colonial exile. Henceforth, the white settlement colonies would have to
raise their own militia for local defence. The Army Reserve was intended
to reduce the estimates by cutting the size of the pension bill, for most
men left the army in their mid- or late-twenties, still young enough to take
up another occupation. And it also gave the army the power of expansion
it had lacked in the past. If reservists were recalled to the colours and used
to fill up the establishment of home service battalions, the War Office
could have at its disposal a rapid reaction force that could be sent overseas
in an emergency. The success of this innovation was shown in 1882 when
the War Office succeeded in despatching a force of 35,000 troops to Egypt
between June and August. But even that was dwarfed by its ability to
despatch 112,000 regulars to South Africa between October 1899 and
January 1900.
 The British Army and the empire 93
In more normal times, the provision of trained soldiers for units serving
in colonial garrisons was solved by linking regular battalions in pairs. Each
pair of battalions was then giving a permanent depot where its recruits
enlisted and were trained. One battalion was supposed to serve at home and
would supply trained drafts for its linked battalion overseas. After 1881, bat-
talions usually did not spend more than 16 years overseas, although indi-
vidual officers and other ranks would not normally serve abroad for more
than eight years. The regulars were also linked through their depot with the
part-time soldiers of their local militia and Volunteer (after 1908 Territorial
Force) battalions, the whole forming a single regiment.5
The Indian mutiny had revealed similarly serious shortcomings in
Britain’s military arrangements in India. On the eve of the mutiny, the gar-
rison of British India was composed of a handful of British regiments and
a much larger number of regiments of the East India Company’s Army.
Although the Company had raised a handful of purely British units, most
of its regiments consisted of locally recruited sepoy soldiers led by British
officers. On the eve of the Mutiny in May 1857, there were only 40,000
British troops stationed in India compared to about 300,000 Indians.
Although the mutiny was largely confined to the sepoy regiments of the
Bengal army, the mutineers seemed to come so close to expelling the
British from India that, after the Mutiny, the Crown felt that it had no
option other than to take direct responsibility for the governance of India
and control of India’s military resources. In 1858, the Viceroy of India and
the India Office argued in favour of raising a separate European army for
service only in India. But their case was fatally undermined when many of
the European troops of the Company’s army mutinied when they were
compulsorily transferred to the land forces of the British Crown. Hence-
forth, European troops in India were drawn from amongst ordinary British
line regiments posted on a temporary basis to India. Command authority
in each Indian Army unit resided in the hands of British officers attached
to the Indian Staff Corps, men who expected to serve with the Indian
Army throughout their careers. Indians could rise to non-commissioned
rank as Viceroy’s Commissioned Officers, but it was not until after the First
World War that they could hope to hold the Queen’s Commission.6
In theory, India offered Britain an almost limitless supply of soldiers
that it could employ in Asia. In practice, however, Britain’s ability to
mobilise India’s military resources was constrained by several factors. The
first was that the British were determined that the costs of military occupa-
tion should fall upon the Indian taxpayer, not upon his British counter-
part. But the government’s ability to raise taxes in India was not limitless.
If it pressed too hard, it knew that it would provoke unrest which would
require an expensive increase in the forces of law and order. Second, after
1858 the British were determined that they would always have enough
British troops on hand to suppress another mutiny. Consequently, they
fixed the ratio of British to Indian soldiers at approximately one to two.
94 D. French
The size of the Company’s army was drastically reduced, and by the mid-
1860s there were 120,000 Indians in the three Presidency armies of
Bombay, Calcutta and Madras and 60,000 British soldiers.
The third measure that the British took to minimise the chances of
future large-scale mutinies was that they deliberately raised Indian regi-
ments on a local basis and from amongst a variety of caste and religious
groups. Doing this, they hoped to ensure that their sepoys felt loyalty to
their regiment and to their caste, but not to the army as a whole, in the
hope that this would reduce the possibility that large numbers of soldiers
would combine around a common grievance. The British developed an
elaborate theory of ‘martial races’ that dictated that certain social groups
and religious minorities, usually from amongst the least-westernised groups
in Indian society, were better fitted than others to the profession of soldier-
ing. In particular, they recruited from amongst Gurkhas, Sikhs, Rajputs and
Dogras in preference to any groups from Madras, Bengal or Bombay.7
After the initial period of conquest, which was concluded by 1918, the
British maintained no European troops in Africa other than their garrison
in Egypt and a couple of infantry battalions in the Sudan. Elsewhere in
Africa, they raised local forces and used them as gendarmerie to impose
and maintain their control. Just as in India, they developed and applied a
‘martial race’ theory, preferring to recruit peasants from groups outside the
mainstream of indigenous society.8 Such men, they believed, could be more
easily moulded into loyal, obedient and disciplined soldiers, because they
were unsullied by European education. The largest of these forces were the
RWAFF and the King’s African Rifles. The RWAFF was established in 1898.
In the interwar period, it maintained one company in Gambia, two com-
panies in Sierra Leone, one battalion in the Gold Coast and four battalions
in Nigeria. The King’s African Rifles, formed in 1902, operated in the East
African territories. It had one battalion in Kenya, two in Tanganyika, one in
Uganda and another divided between Somaliland and Nyasaland. Following
the mutiny of Egyptian Army regiments in Khartoum in 1924, the British
formed a separate small army in the Sudan, the Sudan Defence Force.9 As
in the Indian Army, units were led by British officers. But unlike in India,
officers were seconded from British regiments and served for only a com-
paratively short time before returning to them. The climate and the threat
of disease in tropical Africa made prolonged service with African units unat-
tractive to Europeans, but the offer of higher pay, greater responsibility and
generous leave meant that African units were rarely short of British officers.
The African rank and file were attracted by the promise of regular wages, a
uniform, and at times, the possibility of loot. Formal discipline was probably
more draconian than in Indian regiments, and flogging was not finally abol-
ished in the British African army until 1946.10
But it would be wrong to suggest that the British relied solely or even
largely on formal disciplinary sanctions to keep their soldiers in line. The
basic building block of the British army, and its Indian and colonial
 The British Army and the empire 95
counter-parts, was the battalion. A battalion consisted of about 1,000 offi-
cers and men. This structure created communities in which everyone was
likely to know each other, probably by name, and certainly by sight. Such
a structure promoted strong unit cohesion and esprit de corps and it was
that which the military authorities really relied upon to maintain discip-
line and morale. They did so by deliberately going out of their way to
promote a distinctive identity for each unit by conferring upon it all of the
trappings of special standards, badges, uniform, embellishments, cere-
monies and traditions.11 The community feeling that they created was
immensely valuable when units were stationed for many weary years in
uncomfortable cantonments thousands of miles from home. It was further
enhanced because most regimental officers and the rank and file they
commanded could expect to serve their entire career with the same regi-
ment. This bred a close sense of identity between officers and other ranks
that did something to soften the harsh edges of the army’s formal discipli-
nary system, particularly when officers exhibited, as they usually did, a
sense of paternal concern for their men.12 Both before and after the
Crimean War, regimental officers took the lead in trying to create well-
behaved soldiers less by the imposition harsh physical discipline and more
by providing an environment that encouraged their men to avoid the
temptations of vice and diverted their surplus energies and time into
organised team games and ‘rational’ recreations.13
Regimental life in colonial cantonments was also characterised by an
obsessive concern with cleanliness and order, and soldiers spent many
weary hours each week cleaning their kit, clothing and rooms. This had a
severely practical purpose, for disease killed far more soldiers in the
empire than bullets or shells ever did. The military authorities were deter-
mined that soldiers would live in small islands of cleanliness in that they
believed that it was the general filth that characterised so many of the
colonies.14 In India, this had been achieved by the late 1880s. Garrisons
usually inhabited their own, isolated cantonments, near, but generally
outside of major centres of civilian population. Great attention was paid to
ensuring a clean water supply and adequate sanitation to take away waste
products. Attention to such matters paid dividends in terms of safeguard-
ing the health and well-being of colonial garrisons.15 At Gibraltar, for
example, the health of the garrison and their civilian neighbours, as meas-
ured by the local infant mortality rate, was roughly comparable until the
mid-1880s. Thereafter, the military authorities began to improve the sani-
tation of the cantonment. In particular, they improved the quality of
drinking water provided for troops and their families. The civilian popu-
lation did not enjoy similar benefits. The result was that whereas the
infant mortality rate for soldiers’ children fell sharply, that of civilian
population fell much more slowly.16
Commanders in the field were slower to learn these lessons. Until the
Boer War, many remained convinced that losses from disease were an
96 D. French
inevitable consequence of going on campaign. The results of their insou-
ciance were starkly revealed shortly after Lord Roberts’ army occupied
Bloemfontein in March 1900. The readiness of many regimental officers
to ignore even elementary sanitary precautions meant that the army was
crippled for several weeks by an outbreak of typhoid fever.17 But, lessons
were learned. Forty years later, at the battle of Alamein, the British army’s
sanitary discipline was so superior to that of the Axis armies that its sick
rate was less than half that of Rommel’s German troops.18
Between 1872 and 1899, the British and Indian armies took part in
about three dozen major campaigns and many more minor ones. Most
were fought to break down resistance to British hegemony or to punish
indigenous groups living on the fringes of the empire and who had the
temerity to challenge it. Space constraints make it impossible to provide a
comprehensive account of them here, and indeed, many still await good
modern studies based on the extant archival sources.19 But certain
common features do stand out. The most obvious problem that the
British confronted was that the enemies they fought were often wildly dif-
ferent. One result of that was only in 1896, with the publication of Sir
Charles Callwell’s Small Wars that the British army acquired its own
manual explaining how to conduct operations on the periphery of the
empire. The British were also frequently handicapped because their
enemies usually had a better knowledge of the local terrain than they did.
Given the variety of enemies they confronted and the topographical dif-
ficulties they encountered, intelligence gathering was supremely import-
ant. But, winning the information war was often difficult, for the War
Office’s Intelligence Branch was under-funded, and so field commanders
had to improvise their own arrangements. Just how they did this remains
a question that requires further study, but they seem to have relied upon
local spies, scouts and informants. Because they often lacked accurate
maps, they also had to employ numerous reconnaissance parties to dis-
cover the position of waterholes, rivers and crossing points.20
Forces fighting on the edge of the empire usually did so at the end of
long and tenuous lines of communications. They also often had to battle
against dangerous climate and unfamiliar diseases. These factors in turn
shaped how the British conducted their operations. In Ashante, during
1873–4, for example, Sir Garnet Wolseley knew that he had to advance
quickly to the enemy’s capital, for if he tarried, his European troops would
succumb to disease.21 Long lines of communications also had to be
guarded, which could make colonial soldiering a manpower-intensive
undertaking. During the Boer War, the British deployed a maximum of
450,000 men, but only 10 per cent were available for mobile operations
chasing Boer Commandos. The rest were employed protecting the army’s
supply lines.22
The British were not invariably successful in their colonial wars. The
Zulus defeated a British column at Isandlwana in 1879, and the Boers
 The British Army and the empire 97
defeated another at Majuba Hill in 1881. The enemy often held the stra-
tegic advantage, for it was sometimes difficult for the British to identify
their centre of gravity, the location or capability from which they derived
their strength and will to fight, and whose destruction and capture would
persuade them to make peace on British terms. The British often opted
to direct their offensive against their enemy’s capital. If they defended it,
the British might then be able to make them stand and fight and use their
superior firepower to destroy them. It worked for Wolseley when he
advanced on Kumasi, the capital of Ashante, just as it did a decade later
when his army landed in Egypt and threatened Cairo. On both occasions,
his enemies offered themselves up to a quick defeat when they fought in
front on their capitals. It also worked in the Sudan in 1898, when Kitch-
ener’s advance on Khartoum, and his decision to bombard the tomb of
the Mahadi, was sufficient to persuade the Mahdist army to immolate
itself by mounting a frontal attack on his army.23 But it did not work in
South Africa when a portion of the Boer forces continued to wage a guer-
rilla war for nearly two years after the capture of Bloemfontein and Preto-
ria in 1900.24
But if their enemies sometimes had a significant strategic advantage,
the British often, but not always, had some tactical advantages. Their
discipline was at the least equal to that of their enemies, and often supe-
rior. And more often than not, they possessed superior fire arms. Indeed,
one of the distinguishing features of the British army was its eagerness to
make use the latest products of western technology to compensate for its
numerical inferiority. These included the heliograph (first used in the
Second Afghan War), the field telegraph, hot air balloons, railways and
steam gunboats. They also took advantage of the latest developments in
modern medicine to overcome tropical diseases such as malaria that
would otherwise have decimated their ranks.25 After 1919, they added
armoured cars, motor vehicles and aircraft to their inventory in the hope
that they would enable them to carry out their preferred policy of striking
at their colonial enemies relentlessly and swiftly even more effectively.26
The result of the army’s reliance on high technology was shown most
starkly at the battle of Omdurman in 1898. Kitchener’s forces were trans-
ported to the city by a combination of railways and barges drawn down the
River Nile by steam-powered gun boats. They then expended half a
million rounds of ammunition, some of it from maxim machine guns, to
kill 11,000 of the Dervish army of 52,000. Kitchener’s forces lost 48 dead.27
However, occasionally, the British did not have it quite so much their own
way. The fact that the Boers were excellent marksmen armed with modern
European rifles is well known. But what is less well known is that during
the Tirah campaign on the North-West Frontier of India in 1897, the
British were disconcerted to discover that their Pathan opponents were
equipped with breech-loading rifles that were every bit as good as their
own and that they knew how to use them.28
98 D. French
The morale of the British troops engaged in these small wars of empire
was sustained by a mixture of patriotism, regimental loyalty and a deep
sense of their own racial and moral superiority. Officers had been imbued
at their public school with a shared code of beliefs and values that one his-
torian has called a ‘self-sacrificial warriorhood’.29 Both officer and other
ranks were usually convinced that the indigenous peoples they were fight-
ing were their moral inferiors and were liable to become unnerved by the
spectacle of British troops advancing steadily on them.30 They rarely had
many qualms of conscience when ordered to raze the society they were
bent on conquering. In 1879, Lord Chelmsford, for example, justified his
policy of burning Zulu kraals, killing their cattle and allowing his soldiers
to kill Zulu prisoners by insisting that ‘I am satisfied that the more the
Zulu nation at large feels the strain brought upon them by the war, the
more anxious will they be to see it brought to an end’.31
However, the guerrilla phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War, perhaps
because their opponents were white and so could not be easily dismissed
as racial inferiors, evoked a different response from some soldiers. In
South Africa, some officers became increasingly uncomfortable when
ordered to burn Boer farms to prevent the commandos from using them
as sources of food and intelligence and to herd their unfortunate inhabit-
ants into concentration camps where many died from epidemic diseases.
They saw the Boers as epitomising the same rural virtues whose disappear-
ance from British society they so much regretted.32 But many of their col-
leagues had fewer qualms about imposing a scorched earth policy on the
Boer republics. They shared Lord Roberts’ conviction that unless the
Boer people as a whole were made to suffer for the depredations of those
still under arms, the war would continue. By the spring of 1902, it had
worked. The remaining Boer guerrillas surrendered, finally recognising
that they faced the stark choice of either continuing to resist the impos-
ition of British rule or seeing the very society that they were fighting to
preserve utterly crushed.33
Colonial soldiering took its toll on the British as well as their oppon-
ents. In the late nineteenth century, the suicide rate amongst soldiers in
the United Kingdom was about three times higher than that amongst the
civilian population and four times higher if they were serving in India.34 In
1909, a War Office spokesman told the House of Commons that an
average of 50–60 soldiers committed suicide annually.35 Although it was
not until the First World War that army doctors began to recognise what
they would then label ‘shell-shock’, it is likely that many soldiers who were
discharged from the army suffering from diseases diagnosed variously as
‘disordered action of the heart’, rheumatism, neurasthenia and general
muscular debility were suffering from what today would be called battle
exhaustion.36
Once the empire had been conquered, it had to be garrisoned. The
largest of these garrisons was in India, where about one-third of the British
 The British Army and the empire 99
army was normally stationed. Together with the Indian Army, these troops
existed to perform two functions, to assist the civil power when called upon
and to constitute a field army that could repulse any threats, either from
Russia, the Afghans or the tribesmen on the North-West Frontier who
acknowledged no higher authority. The British administration in India was
usually confident that they could deal successfully with one of these
threats. What gave them nightmares was the possibility that tribal unrest on
the frontier, or a threat from India or Afghanistan, might coincide with
unrest in the interior of India and stretch their exiguous forces beyond
their limits.37 It was this possibility that became the focus of an intense
debate amongst British military planners about how best to defend India.
By 1884, the Russians had occupied Turkestan and were building the Tran-
scaspian Railway. When it was complete, Russian troops could be brought
directly to the border of Afghanistan. In Delhi, British staff officers calcu-
lated that the Russians might soon be able to invade India with 95,000
troops and that the British would have to reinforce India with 100,000
more men to stop them. How to stop them became the focus of a vigorous
debate in the late nineteenth century. Options considered included
amphibious operations in the Black Sea, a counter offensive through
Persia or an advance into Afghanistan to hold a line inside Afghanistan
along the Hindu Kush mountains. These arguments became powerful
tools in the hands of successive Commanders-in-Chief of the Indian Army
when they tried to extract more money from the clutches of the Treasury
in the late nineteenth century at a time when it was also under pressure
from the Admiralty to increase naval spending.38
Outside India, the British army maintained garrisons at no fewer than
20 overseas stations by 1898. They spanned the globe from Halifax, Nova
Scotia, where 1,800 men were stationed, to Hong Kong, where 1,167 men
were based.39 When soldiers were not busy training, or cleaning their can-
tonments, uniforms and equipment, they were probably on parade.
Parades were not merely intended to occupy the time of idle soldiers.
They also served an important imperial purpose. Colourful uniforms,
flying flags and all the panoply of military ceremonies were vital factors
underpinning the British Empire. By projecting an image of strength, they
hid its slender reality, for there was always an enormous discrepancy
between the population of a colony and its British garrison.40 On the eve
of the First World War, for example, India had a population of about
300 million and a British garrison of 77,000 soldiers, Egypt had a popu-
lation of about 12.5 million and a British garrison of between 4,000–5,000
British soldiers, and the Gold Coast, with a population of about 1.6
million, had a locally raised garrison of about 1500 troops and a handful
of British officers.41 The British Empire was administered on a shoestring
and the military was no exception. The British were always reluctant to
raise large numbers of troops because an expensive garrison could make a
colony unprofitable. Each colony was required to meet the cost of its own
100 D. French
local defence, and consequently, the forces at the disposal of a colonial
administration were always the smallest and cheapest that could still offer
an impression of security. Colonial government only worked because a
minority of the indigenous population in each colony was willing to coop-
erate actively with the usually tiny cadre of British administrators sent to
govern them and because the remainder were willing to acquiesce in
British rule. If the tax burden needed to support the administration
became too heavy, acquiescence was likely to melt away.42
Whenever possible, the British extracted obedience by trading on their
reputation for invincibility. But when local cooperation and acquiescence
did break down, troops were summoned to act as a reserve force of last
resort to assist the civil power to maintain law and order.43 As the some-
times savage British reaction to the Indian Mutiny showed, when their rule
was threatened by serious revolt, they could act ruthlessly to reassert their
domination. The idea that swift and decisive military action was the only
practical response to outright rebellion was embedded in British colonial
thought remained a constant long after 1857. But given their exiguous mil-
itary resources, it could not be employed on an everyday basis. And if the
British were to maintain at least the facade that their rule was based on
justice, force had to be employed within some kind of legal framework.
Duties ‘in aid of the civil power’ were rarely popular with the troops, not
least because it confronted them with uncomfortable tactical and legal
conundrums. Ideally, the military preferred to deploy troops in such large
numbers that their very presence would overawe rioters and prevent
further trouble. But in practice, that was not always possible. In Britain, if
unrest became violent, an officer in command of troops on the spot was
faced with the decision as to whether or not he should open fire to restore
order. If he did not, and the riot got out of hand, he could be court-mar-
tialled for neglecting his duty. If he did order him men to open fire and
civilians died as a result, he could be tried before a civil tribunal for
murder.44 The law in India and elsewhere gave soldiers more protection
from civil prosecution. But, as the fate of Brigadier-General Dyer, who
ordered troops to open fire on a peaceful and unarmed crowd at Amritsar
in 1919, showed, an officer’s career and reputation could still be forfeited
if he made a mistake.45
During the two world wars, the land forces of the empire made a
significant contribution to the British war effort. During the First World
War, the British raised about 1.5 million soldiers and non-combatant
labourers in India and one million soldiers and auxiliaries in Africa.
During the Second World War, about 2.5 million Indians served overseas,
a figure roughly comparable to the manpower contribution of the white
dominions combined.
However, these bare statistics conceal important differences in the ways
in which the British employed imperial ground forces. Before 1914, the
cardinal principle of British military policy in Africa was that, although
 The British Army and the empire 101
Africans could be used on the lines of communication, they should not be
used as combat troops in ‘white men’s wars’. Armed and disciplined black
soldiers might threaten white supremacy once they returned home. Thus,
when the governor of Nigeria offered Nigerian troops for service in South
Africa in 1900, his offer was firmly rejected. In the First World War, large
numbers of African soldiers from East and West Africa took part in the
operations to conquer the German colonial empire. But so serious was the
imperial crisis that confronted the British in both the world wars that in
1914, the colour bar against using non-white troops in Europe was broken.
In 1914, India sent a mixed force to East Africa to protect the
Zanzibar–Mombasa–Nairobi railway, a division to Mesopotamia, and for
the first time it also sent troops to France, a force of two infantry and two
cavalry divisions arriving at Marseilles in September and October. But the
Indian Army had been designed to fight small colonial wars, not the kind
of mass industrial warfare the Indians encountered when they arrived in
France. Within a matter of months, the heavy casualties that were insep-
arable from the war on the Western Front threatened to destroy the intric-
ate clan and family networks and the paternal relationship between British
officers and the sepoys upon which the army’s discipline and morale was
based. By the end of 1915, the Indian infantry had been withdrawn from
France, although the cavalry, who had been less heavily engaged,
remained. For the remainder of the war, most Indian soldiers served in
the Middle East and Africa where they were unlikely to suffer the kinds of
catastrophic casualties that threatened to wreck their morale.46
Initially, in both Africa and India, men enlisted because of the attractive
wages they were offered. But the supply of willing military labour soon
dried up. This was unsurprising. By 1915–16, news had reached India of
the high casualties suffered by the Indian Corps in France. At the same
time, the death rate, largely due to disease and malnutrition, amongst
African soldiers and members of the various Carrier Corps employed on
the lines of communication in East West Africa rose by between 10 and 20
per cent. Consequently, by 1916–17, the British administration had to use
every bit of their influence with local notables to persuade them to encour-
age more men to come forward. And when cajoling and persuasion failed,
as it did increasingly in East and West Africa, they increasingly resorted to
forced conscription and methods to raise the men they required.47
Having seen the African troop’s ability and loyalty during the First
World War, the British had less hesitation about using them outside their
own colonies in the Second World War. Between 1940 and 1941, they
employed troops from East and West Africa to conquer the Italian Empire
in East Africa. Similarly, Indian troops again saw service in Africa, where
they too took part in the conquest of the Italian Empire and also in Italy
itself, where three Indian divisions were deployed between 1943 and 1945.
But it was in Burma that African and Indian soldiers made their most
significant contribution to the imperial war effort during the Second
102 D. French
World War. By January 1945, the combat formations of Slim’s XIV Army
consisted of three African divisions, no fewer than seven Indian divisions,
but only two British divisions. The reconquest of Burma would have been
impossible without the part played by these colonial forces.48
But the experience of fighting large-scale conventional operations was
an aberration for most British soldiers. They were far more likely after
1919, and more especially after 1945, to find themselves committed to a
series of counter-insurgency campaigns in which companies or platoons,
rather than the brigades or divisions, were the basic tactical units.49 Some
were on a relatively small scale and were over quickly. But others, such as
Ireland between 1919 and 1921,50 Palestine between the periods 1936–9
and 1945–8,51 Malaya between 1948 and 1960 and Kenya between 1952
and 1956, spilled over into full-scale counter-insurgency campaigns and
tied down large numbers of troops for years on end. On each occasion,
troops were employed against a variety of colonial nationalist movements
in operations intended to buy the government in London time in which
to resolve its political difficulties.52
Before 1914, the British had often been able to employ Indian troops
to conduct operations in the empire. But after the First World War, their
habit of doing so and then presenting the Indian taxpayer with the bill
ran into growing and effective political opposition in India. In 1919,
Indian army units were scattered across the Middle East in Iraq, Egypt,
Palestine and on the shores of the Black Sea. But the very rigour with
which the British had mobilised Indian resources during the First World
War had compelled them to make political concessions to the Indian
people, and nationalist politicians soon used their new power to insist that
India should no longer bear the costs incurred when Indian troops were
used outside India for wider British purposes.53 Trenchard’s policy of ‘air
policing’ temporarily defused the issue, and a compromise was reached
between the British Raj and its Indian nationalist opponents. Henceforth,
six to eight Indian army units would be used to supplement the British
garrisons in Aden, Iraq, Ceylon, Malaya, Hong Kong and North China,
and India would provide more in emergency, and the costs would be split
between the Indian and British taxpayers. Furthermore, in the 1920s, they
began a cautious policy of Indianisation, granting commissions to a small
number of Indians in selected regiments and announced that their even-
tual aim was to grant Indians full control of the army. For another decade,
the Indian taxpayer still bore the cost of all troops, both British and
Indian, stationed inside India, but in 1933, even that began to change and
for the first time, the British taxpayer began to subsidise the Indian
defence budget.
In the process of negotiating Indian independence, the British tried
hard to retain some kind of control over the subcontinent’s armed forces.
They were willing, for example, to admit India to the Commonwealth in
1949, even though it was a republic, in the hope that India would then
 The British Army and the empire 103
commit troops to Commonwealth-organised military operations. But the
continuing dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir rendered
their efforts futile.54 Henceforth, the British could no longer employ the
Indian army east of Suez and had to look elsewhere to find the troops
they needed to sustain their empire. In part, they solved this problem by
retaining conscription and sending their own men overseas. They also
tried to mobilise the resources of their remaining imperial possessions.
After Indian independence, they retained the right to raise troops in
Nepal, and some policy-makers also seriously contemplated drawing
upon the resources of their African colonies.55 However, the latter was
never really a practical option. The African colonies were too poor to pay
for an expanded military establishment, and Britain itself could find
neither the money nor the large cadre of white officers and NCOs to
make good their deficiencies. Although some African and Fijian troops
were sent to Malaya in the early 1950s, by 1953 it was firmly established
once again that the forces in each colony would be paid for solely by that
colony, would belong to that colony and could not be used as part of a
unified imperial reserve unless the British exchequer paid for them.56
The role of the army in the empire’s post-1945 emergencies has so far
attracted remarkably little attention from academic military historians.
This may be because historians of the British Empire have insisted that
there is nothing much for them to study. Jack Gallagher has asserted that
the British were not driven from their empire after 1945 by successful mili-
tary uprisings.57 That may be so, but it does not gainsay the fact that the
demise of the empire was accompanied by a great deal of military activity
and that much of the army spent the post-war period stationed in the
empire. Between 1945 and 1956, the British army took part in no fewer
than 20 operations outside Europe. They ranged from the suppression or
riots in Hong Kong and periodic border disputes on the frontiers of the
Aden protectorate to major counter-insurgency campaigns in Malaya and
Kenya and conventional wars in Korea and at Suez. In 1954, the British
army consisted of 11 divisions. Four were stationed in West Germany, two
brigades were stationed in the United Kingdom as part of the strategic
reserve and the remainder were garrisoning Britain’s remaining colonial
possessions.58 The academic analysis of these operations is distinctly
uneven. While there is a growing body of academic literature on some
aspects of the post-1945 colonial emergencies, particularly policing, pro-
paganda and intelligence,59 work on the role and behaviour of the army
still relies heavily on published secondary sources. The subject has hardly
been historicised.60
British post-war, counter-insurgency operations were not invariably
successful. In Palestine, the army failed to suppress the Zionist insurrec-
tion largely because they were operating in a political vacuum. The
Labour government failed to devise a clear political goal around which
the army could develop a coherent military strategy. In Malaya and
104 D. French
Kenya they succeeded, partly because the political goal was clearly
defined and partly because coordination between political ends and mil-
itary means was achieved, not just at the highest level of government in
the colony but also at regional and district level. The result was that
when British did depart, they did so only after they had suppressed the
armed groups challenging them, and in both cases, they left behind pro-
Western governments. On the ground, the army was slow to formalise its
counter-insurgency practices into a formal doctrine, but some habits
became common. Intelligence was of critical importance if the army was
to find the insurgents it was trying to suppress, so close cooperation
between the police and troops was essential. Without timely contact
intelligence, the troops often had no option other than to mount large-
scale cordon and search operations, which usually did little more than
antagonise the very people the security authorities wanted to win over
to their cause. The extent to which soldiers on the ground, be it in
Palestine, Malaya or Kenya, remembered the fate of Brigadier-General
Dyer and adhered to the principle of applying minimum force remains
unresolved.61
But it was the Middle East, and more particularly Egypt, that was the
epicentre of Britain’s military commitments outside Europe in the decade
after 1945. Britain had good strategic reasons for wishing to remain in the
Middle East. Not only was it the source of most of their oil supplies, but
British planners assumed that if the Third World War began, the Soviet
Army would quickly overrun Western Europe. Given their massive inferi-
ority on the ground, the only way that the western powers could hope to
defeat the Soviets was by mounting massive air attacks on their military
and industrial infrastructure, and for these to be effective, they had to
have airfields in the Middle East.62 This was the reason why the British
were willing to bargain hard with the Egyptians to renew their base rights
in the Suez Canal zone. But the Egyptians did not want British bases on
their soil at any price. Rather than negotiate, they mounted a guerrilla
campaign to drive the British out. By 1953, the British had between 70,000
and 80,000 troops, including the whole of their Strategic Reserve, in the
Canal Zone, merely to protect the base facilities. The resulting stalemate
showed the limits of military power. The Egyptians could not inflict a mili-
tary defeat on the army. But, confined to their camps and under a state of
virtual siege, the British knew that if the Cold War ever heated up, the
base would be unusable. The explosion by the Soviets of their first H-
bomb in August 1953 finally convinced them that the base was a military
white elephant. In 1954, they agreed that they would evacuate the last of
their troops by 1956.63
But that did not mean that the British had also abandoned their intention
of defending the region against Soviet aggression or using it to mount
counter-strikes against the Soviets. But henceforth, they hoped to minimise
the commitment of ground forces to the region by allying themselves with
 The British Army and the empire 105
the ‘Northern Tier’ of states, Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan, in the Baghdad Pact.
The Pact gave them the right to base bombers even nearer to the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republic’s (USSR) southern frontier.64 However, they had
reckoned without the new Egyptian leader, Colonel Nasser. The British
acted in collusion with the French and Israelis to invade Egypt in 1956 not
merely because Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal threatened British
oil supplies, but because Nasser’s wider political agenda threatened to
undermine British influence throughout the whole of the Middle East.
The resulting fiasco highlighted the fundamental limitation of British
land power in the imperial context. It showed that Britain’s land forces
had only been sufficient to sustain the empire because, at least before
1945, they had operated in an auspicious international context. The
stability of the British Empire had rested upon the willingness of the ruled
to acquiesce in their own subjugation. Britain’s exiguous land forces had
been adequate to the tasks they had faced because British diplomatists
had been able to strike a series of accommodations with their Great Power
rivals to maintain a hands-off attitude to each others’ colonial possessions.
Before 1914, this had led them to sign an alliance with Japan in 1902 and
ententes with France in 1904 and Russia in 1907. Between the two world
wars, the empire was sustained because Russia and the United States had
withdrawn into isolation, the German fleet had been scuttled at Scapa
Flow in 1919, and no power was strong enough to dominate continental
Europe. In the absence of such agreements or circumstances, the British
would have soon discovered that they lacked the manpower to defend the
empire and that the cost of raising forces that were adequate to do so
would have made the whole imperial enterprise unprofitable.65
After 1945, the imperatives of imperial defence led them towards
increasingly close collaboration with the United States. The fact that in
1956 the British no longer possessed the kind of rapid reaction force that
the Cardwell–Childers reforms had given them, and which had allowed
them to conquer Egypt in a matter of weeks in 1882, was only part of the
reason why they faced defeat at Suez. Far more important was the fact that
the international context had been transformed. The kind of aggressive
imperialism that the British had practised so successfully in the late nine-
teenth century was simply no longer internationally acceptable. The Eisen-
hower administration had no more love for Nasser than did the British.
The active role they played in the covert operations that toppled Dr Mus-
sadiq, the Arab nationalist premier of Iraq in August 1953, also showed
that they were quite willing to behave imperially in the Middle East.66 But
what they were not prepared to do themselves, or to support the British in
doing, was to employ naked force in a way that was bound to alienate the
goodwill of every Arab government in the region. Suez was not the last
occasion when the British employed land power to protect or project their
106 D. French
interests outside Europe. But it was the last time they did so without ensur-
ing that they had the active or tacit support of their superpower ally.

Notes
1 Hew Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy. The Reform of the British army 1830–54
(Manchester, 1984); P. Burrows, ‘Crime and punishment in the British army,
1815–1870’, English Historical Review, 100 (1985): 545–71.
2 C. Pulsifer, ‘Beyond the Queen’s Shilling: reflections on the pay of other ranks
in the Victorian British Army’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 80
(2002): 326–34.
3 A. R. Skelley, The Victorian Army at Hom: The Recruitment and Terms and
Conditions of the British Regular, 1859–1899 (London, 1977), 243–9.
4 R. L. Blancho, ‘Army recruiting reforms, 1861–67’, Journal of the Society for Army
Historical Research, 46 (1968): 217–24; T. F. Gallagher, ‘British military thinking
and the coming of the Franco-Prussian War’, Military Affairs, 39 (1975): 19.
5 E. M. Spiers, The Army and Society, 1815–1914 (London, 1980), 177–235.
6 T. A. Heathcote, The Military in British India. The Development of British Land
Forces in South Asia, 1600–1947 (Manchester, 1995), 90–125; P. Stanley, White
Mutiny. British Military Culture in India, 1825 to 1875 (London, 1998).
7 K. Roy, ‘The construction of regiments in the Indian army: 1859–1913’, War in
History, 8 (2001): 127–48; K. Roy, ‘Logistics and the construction of loyalty: the
welfare mechanism in the Indian army 1859–1913’ in P. S. Gupta and A. Desh-
pande (eds), The British Raj and its Indian Armed Forces, 1857–1939 (Delhi,
2002), 98–124.
8 J. Barrett, ‘The rank and file of the colonial army in Nigeria, 1914–1918’,
Journal of Modern African Studies, 15 (1977): 105–15.
9 A. Clayton, The British Empire as Superpower, 1919–39 (London, 1986), 40–2;
D. Killingray, ‘The idea of a British Imperial Army’, Journal of African History, 20
(1979): 421–36.
10 D. Killingray, ‘The “Rod of Empire”: the debate over corporal punishment in
the British African Colonial Forces, 1888–1946’, Journal of African History, 35
(1994): 201–16.
11 J. Keegan, ‘Inventing military traditions’, in C. Wrigley (ed.), Warfare, Diplomacy
and Politics. Essays in Honour of A. J. P. Taylor (London, 1986), 58–75.
12 P. Burroughs, An unreformed army? 1815–1868’, in D. Chandler and I. Beckett
(eds), The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (Oxford, 1994), 160–88.
13 K. Hendrickson, ‘A kinder, gentler British army: mid-Victorian experiments
in the management of vice at Gibraltar and Aldershot’, War and Society, 14
(1996): 21–33; J. D. Campbell, ‘ “Training for sport is training for war”: sport
and the transformation of the British army, 1860–1914’, International Journal
of the History of Sport, 17 (2000): 21–58; R. Hess, ‘ “A healing hegemony: Flo-
rence Nightingale, the British Army in India and a ‘want of . . .exercise’ ” ’,
International Journal of the History of Sport, 15 (1998): 1–17; S. Wood, ‘Temper-
ance and its rewards in the British army’, in M. Harding (ed.), The Victorian
Soldier. Studies in the History of the British Army 1816–1914 (London, 1993),
86–96.
14 D. Arnold, Colonizing the Body. State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-
Century India (Berkeley, CA, 1993); M. Harrison, Public Health in British India.
Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 (Cambridge, 1994); E. M. Colling-
ham, Imperial Bodies. The Physical Experience of the Raj, 1800–1947 (London, 2001).
15 S. Guha, ‘Nutrition, sanitation, hygiene, and the likelihood of death: the British
army in India, c.1870–1920’, Population Studies, 47 (1993): 385–401; M. Harrison,
 The British Army and the empire 107
‘Medicine and the management of modern warfare’, History of Science, 34
(1996): 379–410.
16 L. A. Sawchuk, S. D. A. Burke, and J. Padiak, ‘A matter of privilege: infant mor-
tality in the garrison town of Gibraltar, 1870–1899’, Journal of Family History,
27 (2002): 399–429.
17 S. Pagaard, ‘Disease and the British army in South Africa, 1899–1900’, Military
Affairs, 50 (1986): 71–6.
18 M. Harrison, Medicine and Victory. British Military Medicine in the Second World
War (Oxford, 2004), 84.
19 At the moment, the essential introductions are H. Bailes, ‘Technology and
Imperialism: a case study of the Victorian Army in Africa’, Victorian Studies, 24
(1980): 84–104; B. J. Bond (ed.), Victorian Military Campaigns (London, 1967).
A recent popular compendium based on published sources is I. Hernon,
Britain’s forgotten Wars. Colonial Campaigns of the Nineteenth Century (Stroud,
Gloucester, 2003). Lieutenant Commander A. C. Ashcroft, ‘As Britain returns
to an expeditionary strategy, do we have anything to learn from the Victori-
ans?’, Defence Studies, 1 (2001): 75–89, and, for a slightly later period, Brian
Robson’s Crisis on the Frontier: The Third Afghan War and the Campaign in Waziristan
1919–20 (Staplehurst, 2004), show the riches that await historians willing to
delve deep into the archival sources.
20 E. M. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army (Manchester, 1992), 285.
21 S. Miller, Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption (London,
1999), 15–22.
22 I. F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their
Opponents since 1750 (London, 2001), 33.
23 E. M. Spiers (ed.), Sudan: The Reconquest Reappraised (London, 1998).
24 The Boer War is probably the most intensively researched of all of Britain’s late
nineteenth-century colonial wars. See: T. Pakenham, The Boer War (London,
1979); B. Nasson, The South African War 1899–1902 (London, 1999); K. Surridge,
Managing the South African War, 1899–1902 (London, 1998); D. Judd and K. Sur-
ridge, The Boer War (London, 2002); A. Wessels (ed.), Lord Roberts and the War in
South Africa, 1899–1902 (Gloucester, 2000).
25 I. F. W. Beckett, ‘Victorians at war: war, technology and change’, Journal of the
Society of Army Historical Research, 81 (2003): 330–8; H. Bailes, ‘Technology and
tactics in the British army, 1866–1900’, in R. Haycock and K. Neilson (eds),
Men, Machines and War (Waterloo, ON, 1988), 21–48; G. R. Winton, ‘The
British Army, mechanisation and a new transport system, 1900–1914’, Journal of
the Society for Army Historical Research, 78 (2000): 197–212.
26 W. M. Ryan, ‘The influence of the imperial frontier on British doctrines of
mechanized warfare’, Albion, 15 (1983): 123–42.
27 Spiers (ed.), Sudan; Spiers, Wars of Intervention: a case study – the reconquest of the
sudan, 1896–98 (London, 1998).
28 T. R. Moreman, The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare,
1849–1947 (London, 1998), 53–67.
29 J. A. Mangan, ‘Duty unto death: English masculinity and militarism in the age
of the new imperialism’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 12 (1995): 10.
30 Spiers, Late Victorian Army, 298–9.
31 M. Lieven, ‘ “Butchering the Brutes all over the place”: total war and massacre
in Zululand, 1879’, History, 84 (1999): 620–1. See also I. Knight, The National
Army Museum Book of the Zulu War (London, 2004); J. P. Laband (ed.), Lord
Chelmsford’s Zululand Campaign 1878–1879 (Gloucester, 1994).
32 K. Surridge, ‘ “All you soldiers are what we call pro-Boer”: the military critique
of the South African War, 1899–1902’, History, 82 (1997): 582–600.
33 Nasson, The South African, 210–33; Judd & Surridge, The Boer War, 187–96.
108 D. French
34 W. H. Millar ‘Statistics of death by suicide among Her Majesty’s British troops
serving at home and abroad during the ten years 1862–1871’, Journal of the Statis-
tical Society of London, 37 (1874): 187–92.
35 The Times, 19 Nov. 1890 and 25 June 1909; R. Edmondson, John Bull’s Army
From Within: Facts, Figures, and a Human Document from one who has been ‘through
the mill’ (London, 1907), 93–7.
36 E. Jones and S. Wessely, ‘The origins of British military psychiatry before the
First World War’, War and Society, 19 (2001): 91–108; E. Jones and S. Wessely,
‘Psychiatric battle casualties: an intra- and inter-war comparison’, British Journal
of Psychiatry, 178 (2001): 242–7.
37 K. Jeffery, ‘ “An English barracks in an oriental sea”?: India in the aftermath of
the First World War’, Modern Asian Studies, 15 (1981): 369–70.
38 M. Yapp, ‘British perceptions of the Russian threat to India’, Modern Asian
Studies, 21 (1987): 647–65; A. Preston, ‘Sir Charles MacGregor and the defence
of India, 1857–1887’, Historical Journal, 12 (1969): 58–77; A. Preston, ‘Frus-
trated great gamesmanship: Sir Garnet Wolseley’s plans for war against Russia,
1873–1880’, International History Review, 2 (1980): 239–65; R. A. Johnson, ‘ “Rus-
sians at the gates of India”? planning for the defence of India, 1885–1900’,
Journal of Military History, 67 (2003): 697–744
39 P. Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’ in A. Porter (ed.), The Oxford
History of the British Empire. Vol. 3. The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), 321.
40 Clayton, The British Empire as Superpower, 11–13.
41 D. French, ‘The Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut: prestige as a factor in British
Eastern strategy, 1914–1916’, War and Society, 5 (1987): 45–7; D. Killingray,
‘Repercussions of World War One in the Gold Coast’, Journal of African History,
19 (1978): 39.
42 J. Cell, ‘Colonial rule’, in J. M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), The Oxford
History of the British Empire. Vol. 4. The Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1999), 232–54;
A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, ‘The thin white line: the size of the British colonial
service in Africa’, African Affairs, 79 (1980): 25–44.
43 D. G. Boyce, ‘From Assaye to Assaye: reflections on British government, force
and moral authority in India’, Journal of Military History 63 (1999): 643–68.
44 C. Townshend, ‘Military force and civil authority in the UK, 1914–1921’,
Journal of British Studies, 28 (1989): 262–92; M. F. Noone Jr, ‘Tort claims in
counterinsurgency operations: the British experience in Ireland, 1919–1921’,
Journal of Military History, 57 (1993): 89–109.
45 I am most grateful to Mr Simeon Shoul, who is completing a doctoral thesis on
the British army’s operations in aid of the civil power in the empire between the
wars, for giving me the benefit of his knowledge and understanding of this point.
46 D. Omissi (ed.), Indian Voices of the Great War. Soldier’s Letters, 1914–1918
(London, 1999).
47 G. W. T. Hughes, ‘African manpower statistics for the British Forces in East
Africa, 1914–1918’, Journal of African History, 19 (1978): 101–16; D. Savage and
J. Forbes Munro, ‘Carrier corps recruitment in the British East Africa protec-
torate 1914–1918’, Journal of African History, 2 (1966): 313–43; T. Tai-Yong, ‘An
imperial home front: Punjab and the First World War’, Journal of Military
History, 64 (2000): 371–410.
48 D. Killingray, ‘The idea of a British imperial army’, Journal of African History, 20
(1979): 430–3; D. Killingray, ‘Military and labour recruitment in the Gold
Coast during the Second World War’, Journal of African History, 23 (1982):
83–95; J. Hamilton, ‘African colonial forces’, in D. Smurthwaite (ed.), The
Forgotten War: The British Army in the Far East 1941–1945 (London, 1992), 67–77;
M. Hickey, The Unforgettable Army. Slim’s XIV Army in Burma (Tunbridge
Wells, 1992).
 British Army and the empire 109
49 J. van Wingen and H. K. Tillema, ‘British military intervention after World
War Two: militance in a second-rank power’, Journal of Peace Research, 17
(1980): 291–303 provides an almost complete list of these operations for the
period after 1945.
50 C. Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland 1919–21. The Development of
Political and Military Policies (Oxford, 1975); P. Hart, The IRA and its Enemies.
Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 (Oxford, 1998).
51 D. A. Charters, The British Army and Jewish Insurgency in Palestine, 1945–47
(London, 1989); C. Townshend, ‘The defence of Palestine: insurrection and
public security, 1936–1939’, English Historical Review, 103 (1988): 917–49; M.
Kolinsky, ‘The collapse and restoration of public security’, in M. J. Cohen and
M. Kolinsky (eds), Britain and the Middle East in the 1930’s: Security Problems,
1935–39 (London, 1992), 147–68.
52 F. Furedi, ‘Creating a breathing space: the political management of colonial
emergencies’, in R. Holland (ed.), Emergencies and Disorders in the European
Empires after 1945 (London, 1994), 89–106.
53 Jeffery, ‘An English barracks’, 372–86.
54 Anita Inder Singh, ‘Imperial Defence and the transfer of power in India,
1946–47’, International History Review, 4 (1982): 475–87; Anita Inder Singh,
‘Keeping India in the Commonwealth: British political and military aims,
1947–49’, Journal of Contemporary History, 20 (1985): 469–81.
55 R. Gregorian, The British Army, the Gurkhas and Cold War Strategy in the Far East,
1947 to 1954 (London, 2002).
56 C. A. Crocker, ‘Military Dependence: the colonial legacy in Africa’, Journal of
Modern African Studies, 12 (1974): 277–81; Killingray, ‘The idea of a British Imper-
ial Army’, 433; A. Nissimi, ‘The illusion of power in Kenya: strategy, decolonisa-
tion, and the British base, 1946–61’, International History Review, 23 (2001): 827–8.
57 J. Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1982),
73–4.
58 M. Dockrill, British Defence Since 1945 (Oxford, 1988), 51.
59 See, for example, D. M. Anderson and D. Killingray (eds), Policing and
Decolonisation. Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917–1965 (Manchester, 1992);
R. Holland (ed.), Emergencies and Disorders in the European Empires after 1945
(London, 1994); S. L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds. British Govern-
ments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency 1944–1960 (Leicester, 1995).
The journal Intelligence and National Security is also publishing a growing
number of articles about the role of intelligence in Britain’s counter-insur-
gency operations.
60 Among the best such works are General Sir W. J. Jackson, Withdrawal from
Empire (London, 1986); G. Blaxland, The Regiments Depart: A History of the British
Army, 1945 to 1970 (London, 1971). Significant and welcome exceptions to this
generalisation, and books that are firmly grounded in the extant archives, are
Charters, The British Army and the Jewish Insurgency in Palestine and Gregorian, The
British Army, the Gurkhas (London, 1989).
61 See T. R. Mockatis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919–60 (London, 1990) and
J. Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency from Palestine to Northern Ireland (London,
2002) for the opposing views.
62 M. J. Cohen, ‘The strategic role of the Middle East after the war’, in M. J.
Cohen and M. Kolinsky (eds), Demise of the British Empire in the Middle East:
Britain’s Responses to Nationalist Movements, 1943–1955 (London, 1998),
23–37.
63 R. Ovendale, ‘Egypt and the Suez Base agreement’, in J. W. Young (ed.), The
Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration 1951–1955 (Leicester, 1988),
135–58.
110 D. French
64 A. Jalal, ‘Towards the Baghdad Pact: South Asia and Middle East Defence in
the Cold War, 1947–1955’, International History Review, 11 (1989): 409–33; B.
Holden-Reid, ‘The “Northern Tier” and the Baghdad Pact’, in J. W. Young
(ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill’s Peacetime Administration 1951–1955
(Leicester, 1988), 159–79.
65 Wm. Roger Louis and R. Robinson, ‘The imperialism on decolonisation’, Journal
of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22 (1994): 462–511; J. Darwin, Britain and
Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World (London, 1988).
66 M. J. Gasiorowski, ‘The 1953 coup d’etat in Iran’, International Journal of Middle
East Studies, 19 (1987): 261–86.
6 The Royal Navy and the defence
of empire, 1856–1918
Andrew Lambert

In November 1901, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Selbourne,

minuted the Cabinet that: ‘Its Credit and its Navy seem to me to be the
two main pillars of power on which the strength of this country rests, and
each is essential to the other’. For Selbourne and his contemporaries, ‘this
country’ was an imperial construct, not an insular geographical fact. The
same point had been made 200 years earlier; nothing had changed in the
interval,1 nor would the underlying realities be altered by the end of
formal empire. Britain remained a major international capitalist economy
with a powerful navy.
This understanding gives a particular significance to the role of the
Royal Navy (RN) in ‘Imperial Defence’. This phrase is loaded with mean-
ings that have prompted some to argue that no such thing existed;2 others
have extended the concept of empire, while this chapter will argue that
the term ‘defence’ is highly, and in many ways, deliberately, misleading.

What kind of empire?

While this is not the place to debate the nature of the British Empire, it
is important to establish what was included within this construct and what
was considered worth defending. There have been two major structural
explanations for the pattern of imperial development in this period, those
of Robinson and Gallagher, and of Cain and Hopkins.3 While the former
stressed the strategic imperatives, the dominance of India and direction
from the Centre by an ‘Official mind’, the latter preferred to rebuild the
economic picture, stressing the primacy of ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism’, the
City of London and finance, in British Imperial policy. The importance of
these two texts lies as much in the debate they prompted as their core
arguments.4 The two strands of thinking are not mutually exclusive, and
for this purpose we may find it more profitable to see how their perspec-
tives can illuminate our subject. Both stress the relative unimportance of
land, the value of markets, and the use of naval force to secure them. Criti-
cally, both theories use the concept of an ‘informal’ empire to widen the
reach of British power and the range of countries where the power of the
112 A. Lambert
RN was critical to the defence of what was considered ‘empire’. By exploit-
ing both models, we can develop an altogether more holistic view of
‘Imperial Defence’ than has been used in earlier studies.5 Trade and
market access were the critical imperial concerns, not land or people.
Consequently, the word empire is problematic: it possesses connota-
tions and meanings that are hardly compatible with the British emphasis
on access and markets, investment, and opportunity. The territory of the
British Empire should not be seen in the same light as the Roman
empires of domination and control created by contemporary continental
powers. British policy-makers saw no purpose in controlling land and
people and had no difficulty with the concept of a looser federation or
the ultimate relaxation of colonial ties. However, there were always excep-
tions, the most obvious of which was India, before 1857 a privately run
continental empire that was both a market and an imperial base. India
undermines any attempt to build a simple theoretical model of the
British Imperial idea but, significantly, not the strategic explanation
offered in this chapter of how it was secured.
After the loss of the American Colonies in 1783, Britain showed a
marked reluctance to engage in further large-scale imperial projects and
for the first half of the nineteenth century focussed on imperial assets,
naval bases, and key trade connections, otherwise unattractive outposts at
Malta, Hong Kong, and Aden enabled the RN to support trade. Other
assets, notably Australia and New Zealand were secured to preclude
French settlement, while in South Africa and India open frontiers exerted
a variety of pull factors.
The connection between trade, policy, and power is nowhere better
developed than in John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium and the ‘Arrow’ War
(1856–1860). Examining the Far Eastern policy of the Palmerston Min-
istries Wong uncovers an aggressive commercial agenda, pushing the free
trade concept into hitherto closed or restricted markets, using the Navy by
turns as executor or persuader. This is the ultimate corrective to older
one-dimensional gunboats, and c. Wong shows Britain as an aggressive
commercial empire, prepared to use the flotilla of coast-attack gunboats
left over from the Crimean War to drive a fiscal stake into the heart of
Chinese exclusionism. At the same time, heavily armed warships carried
‘trade’ missions to Siam and Japan. The message was clear: trade or
perish.6 As Cain and Hopkins rightly stress, the power of the centre was
immense. Commerce and force went hand in hand. Nor was this a novel
fact. As Daniel Baugh has emphasised, the British fought and won the wars
of the eighteenth century primarily through economic attrition and
expected to apply the same system in 1914.7
For imperial London, the key to external policy was, at its simplest, how
to keep Europe quiet and stable so that Britain and her capitalists could
focus efforts on commercial expansion elsewhere. The city was prepared
to pay a heavy premium for this stability and took a leading role in the
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 113
navalist agitation of the 1890s, which culminated in the Spencer pro-
gramme of 1894.8
The diplomatic policy of imperial Britain has recently been reconsid-
ered by John Charmley, who has criticised the inflexibly anti-German and
overly committed Continental policy of the pre-1914 Liberal Government.
He considers this marked a major change in British policy, away from one
which regarded imperial interests as primary, and restrained Britain to a
naval and financial role in any Continental conflict.9 While there was a
tendency to construct an apolitical consensus on defence issues, modern
scholarship is asking new questions. As the main parties diverged on impe-
rial issues, there is no reason to assume they converged on the defence of
empire. Furthermore, there was rarely anything like a ‘party’ position, as
Rhodri Williams demonstrated in: Defending the Empire: The Conservative
Party and British Defence Policy 1899–1915.10 The Conservatives began the
shift of defence priorities from imperial to European, the modernisation
of the army and the navy, and the foundation of the politico-military
coordinating body, significantly named the ‘Committee of Imperial
Defence’. The central figure in Conservative defence policy and founder
of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), Prime Minister Arthur
Balfour, shares a biographer with the leading naval figure of the genera-
tion, Lord Fisher.11 Further studies of internal party debates on defence,
and policy-makers, particularly those working at the political/naval inter-
face will be of real value. The inner dynamics of Asquith’s pre-1914
government deserve a fresh study, along with the political and imperial
ideas of key ministers.

A question of perspective
By far, the largest literature on imperial defence concerns the implica-
tions of the growth of responsible dominion government for defence
issues. This perspective has been well handled in national and dominion-
based studies by Preston, Gordon, and McGibbon,12 while Nicholas
Lambert’s more specific Australia’s Naval Heritage: Imperial Strategy and the
Australia Station 1880–190913 provides an excellent collection of docu-
ments, the lucid and well-balanced introduction demonstrates the irrelev-
ance of strategic threat to discussions of Australian naval requirements. In
reality, all dominion-based studies suffer from a degree of unreality, in
part a product of the political basis of the debates they cover, and in part,
of the strategic realities that such debates blatantly ignored. The powerful
nationalist trend in Australian and Canadian history, closely linked to
ongoing debates about the future role of the British Crown in national
life, has been set back of late, notably by John Moses and Christopher
Pugsleys’ edited volume The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions,
1871–1919 which argues for an altogether homogeneous concept of
empire, based on self-interest. By examining German ambition and
114 A. Lambert
contemporary Australasian opinion on the threat it posed, these essays
stress the essential role of the empire in securing the dominions.14
Nicholas Tracey’s The Collective Naval Defence of the Empire, 1900–1940 pro-
vides extensive documentation on the period up to 1918, illustrating the
Admiralty’s clear commitment to common naval training, equipment,
signals and systems, even if dominion political pressures made distinct ser-
vices inevitable.15
In reality, the greatest, perhaps the only, threat to the British Empire
between 1856 and 1918 came from Europe. The emergence of a European
hegemonic bloc, similar to the Napoleonic superstate, was the worst-case
scenario for British war-planning, the seizure of Antwerp and the River
Scheldt by such a hegemon, the only cast iron casus belli in British political
life. With the main danger lying close to the centre, not on the peripheries,
the British state necessarily focussed its attention on Europe, because while
Europe was stable British interests were secure. No continental power
would unilaterally attack Britain or her outlying dependencies while their
rivals were in a position to exploit the inevitable problems. Fortunately for
the British economy, the same forces that secured the British Islands from
invasion, the major battle fleets were also the key to the defence of the
wider world. There was, as the Admiralty rather baldly stated throughout
the nineteenth century, only one ocean, and a dominant Fleet would
secure the Empire the ability to use that ocean (and deny the ocean to
other powers) better by blockading the enemy in European harbours than
chasing isolated cruisers across the open oceans in an age before wireless.
This reality was understood by contemporary analysts, notably the historian
Sir John Laughton. Between the mid-1860s and the end of the Edwardian
era, Laughton harnessed history to the development of national strategy
and his powerful review articles providing the strategic education for
British officers and a famous American strategic thinker, Captain Alfred
Thayer Mahan USN.16

British strategy
It should be stressed from the outset that British strategy was central not
peripheral, powerful, not petty. After 1861, British imperial strategy
shifted away from the stationed forces, both land and sea, of the previous
sixty years towards mobile, centrally controlled units advocated that year
by the Mills Committee and urged as an economy measure by William
Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With suitable local facilities
and good communications, naval forces stationed locally could be
reduced in quality, for example, replacing front-line fighting ships with
gunboats adequate to meet the widespread local demands placed on the
navy. Powerful units could be dispatched from Britain or the Mediter-
ranean to reinforce the periphery. In late 1864, Gladstone renewed his
call for a ‘Flying Squadron’ strategy, but Prime Minister Palmerston and
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 115
the Cabinet rejected the proposal. When Gladstone became Liberal party
leader and then Prime Minister in late 1868, this ‘Flying Squadron’ strat-
egy was adopted with almost an unseemly haste, as an economy measure.17
The First Lord of the Admiralty summed up the new policy:

The diminution of the force permanently maintained in distant seas

will enable my Lords to send a cruising squadron of frigates and
corvettes to visit the stations from time to time, and my Lords antici-
pate that much benefit to the naval service will be derived from this
policy.18

Within days, a ‘Flying Squadron’ was on its way to Australasia.19 However,

it should be stressed that the possibility of war with Russia in 1878 and
1885 was deterred by the assembly of a power projection fleet at Spithead,
not the local defences of the British Empire.20 While the Russians feared
for St. Petersburg, Australia and India were safe. Similarly, the Trent crisis
of 1861 had demonstrated that Britain could not station forces in Canada
to meet the US Army. She had to rely on deterrence. Her global empire
could not be secured against serious attack by local defences. This was a
matter of basic economics and political expediency. Britain would not pay
for a high level of local defence, nor would her colonies. The only strategy
that combined real power, global reach, and relative economy was one
based on the offensive strength of the RN. Throughout the nineteenth
century, the RN had the power to destroy any rival navy, securing British
interests, and releasing the fleet for further offensive operations, includ-
ing an economic blockade, the seizure of overseas or isolated territories as
diplomatic assets, and attacks on major cities. The war would be fought
with a limited commitment of manpower and money; while it could not
destroy a major power, it would exhaust their military and economic
resources and ultimately break their political will. Sea power gave Britain
the ability to attack an enemy at their weakest or most sensitive point
rather than simply countering an attack at the point it crossed the imper-
ial frontier. A maritime striking force could be dispatched from the centre
of the empire, staging through the global chain of bases, to project power
against any rival. Because so many accounts equate defence with the terri-
tory and focus on a local balance, this global concept has been largely
overlooked. Only viewing the empire as an oceanic construct will reveal
the consistencies.
Because the British never wrote down their core strategic doctrine in
the period 1815–1914, many historians have argued that there was no
strategy. This is not correct. The British retained the strategy of the
Napoleonic wars and consistently upgraded to integrate new technologies
and political realities. Between 1856 and 1865, the strategy shifted from
stationed forces to a centrally controlled ‘expeditionary’ strategy. The
long-term success of British strategy is obvious. Between 1814 and 1914,
116 A. Lambert
no major power attacked Britain. While rival powers could identify areas
of relative British weakness, the North-West frontier of India, Canada, and
oceanic trade – none could develop a strategy that could coerce Britain.
By contrast, Britain did have a strategy that could deter her rivals, and
consequently, the reality of British power was written in stone, at Cher-
bourg, Cronstadt, New York, and Wilhelmshaven.21

What sort of navy?

To carry out this global role, the RN needed a dominant sea control battle
fleet, forces to provide local support to the civil power at the margins of
empire and the ability to attack and destroy first class fortresses. In the
main, historians have failed to address these disparate issues.
Studies of naval policy were for many years dominated by the works of
Arthur J. Marder,22 but they were only concerned with European issues
leading up the inevitable war in 1914 and takes to easily the idea that the
strategic redistribution of the early twentieth century was a ‘retreat’. While
Britain had a unique global chain of bases with dry docks, cable communi-
cations, and coal stocks, the fleet could be redeployed with relative ease,
as it would be after 1918. Ruddock Mackay’s biography of Fisher provided
a new standard work on the most important British Naval officer of the
era, while important works by Jon Sumida and Nicholas Lambert have
overturned Marder’s judgements in important areas, notably technology
and strategic policy.23 Their work places the Fisher era in a more global
perspective, stressing that it was the need for powerful imperial and Euro-
pean naval squadrons, not simply the threat posed by the German fleet,
that forced John Fisher to make radical changes in all aspects of policy.
These new insights begin the process of returning the empire to the core
of naval history. The next stage will be to assess the overall policy perform-
ance in the light of the growing centralisation of defence in the era of the
Committee of Imperial Defence.
The best study of naval policy in this period is Beeler’s British Naval
Policy in the Gladstone–Disraeli Era, 1866–1880 of 1997.24 In a work of
remarkable depth, based on exemplary research, Beeler comprehensively
demolishes the old myths about the ‘Dark Ages of the Admiralty’, lack of
strategic planning, and inconsistent policy-making that had been allowed
to stand far too long. The RN, working with limited budgets, under con-
stant pressure for cuts managed to maintain a force equally capable of
dominating European waters and securing oceanic trade in the distant
oceans. The key to this new version is Beeler’s ability to go beyond the
documents and develop a broader grasp of the issues. The RN did not
create policy papers and strategies like European armies and therefore
should not be studied in the same way. Beeler has also edited Professor
Donald Schurmans’ 1955 Cambridge PhD thesis for publication as Imper-
ial Defence 1868–1887 in 2000.25 This, the most detailed examination of the
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 117
issues in print, was written by a scholar who had spent his career examin-
ing the question and mastering the ideas of the key thinkers who influ-
enced its development. Schurman’s Education of a Navy and Julian S Corbett
are the key texts for this process. The appearance of a festschrift for Pro-
fessor Schurman in 1997 allowed a new generation to add their thoughts
to his legacy.26 John Beeler stresses the central role of deterrence in impe-
rial strategy between 1856 and 1905. Beeler shows how the RN secured the
empire by blockading enemy fleets at home or destroying them inside
their arsenals. The empire was secured by superiority in modern, first-class
warships, a unique chain of bases, and the capacity to project power to all
corners of the globe. Even at the height of the Anglo-German Naval race,
as Nicholas Lambert points out, the Admiralty was developing a Pacific
strategy involving Dominion Navies and a new approach, the ‘fleet unit’
concept. The first such unit was an all new Royal Australian Navy: New
Zealand bought the British a battlecruiser and the Canadians did a lot of
talking. Even so, British strategy at the outbreak of war in 1914 was res-
olutely maritime. The British Government only accepted a continental
strategy in late 1915, as David French demonstrates. He demolishes
another major strand of the ‘continentalist’ argument by showing that the
choice was seen as a massive gamble, relying on dominion manpower to
win the war in Europe before Britain ran out of money. Ultimately, Amer-
ican intervention provided the resources and manpower to finish the job,
but Britain had not become a continental power, just another in the long
line of sea-powers forced to go ashore in strength to finish off a rival land
power. In truth, the empire was the dominant issue, and the threat posed
by Germany was, for all its seriousness, a temporary aberration. Once
Germany had been defeated, the British wanted to re-establish a Euro-
pean balance so that they could get back to their core activity of trade and
empire, and when they rebuilt their forces post-war, it was new ships and
bases they wanted, not armoured divisions. Only through the possession
of overwhelming naval power could the British Empire be defended, but
even then by deterrence rather than war-fighting.
While there is a rich harvest of literature dealing with the Victorian
Navy, much of it published in the period 1890–1914, a golden age for all
manner of heavy blue-bound books on history, strategy and memoir, a
treasure trove that still requires its modern analyst, there is only one sub-
stantial operational narrative. William Laird Clowes’ seven-volume The
RN: A History from the Earliest Times devotes the final volume to the period
1857–1900.27 Although Clowes recognised the importance of administra-
tion, exploration, and technology, his main concern was a narrative of
operational history, minor wars, logistics, naval brigade support for the
army and the odd natural disaster. Many of these conflicts were ‘imperial’,
but few could be considered ‘defence’. Together with lists of officers
holding the senior posts and other data, the book is a vital tool, only truly
appreciated by those who ask what the RN was doing in 1901. The need
118 A. Lambert
for a substantial modern narrative history of the twentieth-century Navy,
World Wars apart, is pressing. Only through a long view of operational
patterns, deployments, and stations, linked to the wider fields of imperial
diplomatic and economic history will the naval role in the defence of
empire become clear. Until then, we are left with tantalising vignettes,
their true meaning obscured by the lack of context.
One area where a significant body of research has been undertaken,
with impressive results, is the design history of the Navy’s instruments,
the fighting ships, and their technology. This process has been led and
assessed by Naval Architect David Brown.28 While much time and effort
was expended producing papers to explain Admiralty policy, and a
significant proportion of these remain in the archives, a more reliable
analytical tool can be found in the major spending decisions. A careful
examination of any warship design should reveal much of the strategy
that was in place at the time it was ordered. Strategy and policy are not
made on paper. The production of papers was both cheap and easy: they
were often only part of a wider process and were written for purposes
which are far from obvious to the modern reader. By contrast, the
expenditure of money on ships, infrastructure, and personnel are the acid
test of strategy and policy. The ships, their deployment, and operation
can be read as easily as a file of papers, but they provide evidence of far
greater weight. For example, the Naval Defence Act of 1889 provided a
combination of ship types which, when analysed, inform the careful
reader that Britain was re-asserting her sea control strategy, that she
expected to blockade her main enemy, France, with a fleet of ocean-
going battleships capable of fighting on the open ocean, supported by
a large force of cruisers, for close blockade and commerce protection,
with torpedo gunboats to counter the threat posed by French flotilla
craft. Distant waters were catered for with a pair of second-class battle-
ships and some modified cruisers. By examining naval design over a
longer period, it is possible to see how these ships differed from those
that had preceded them, but also to place them in the continuum of
British battle fleet–based sea control.29
Further value was derived from the policy of naming ships to link the
Navy with the colonies; the Australian station had seven ships with ‘local’
names, or heroic pasts, usually Nelson, Trafalgar, and the Armada. In
1889, the new battleships were the Royal Sovereign class, named for Colling-
wood’s flagship at Trafalgar. By 1916, another class was re-using these
names, just in time for Jutland where many ships bore Nelsonic names.
This careful attention to the past reinforced the deterrent value of naval
demonstrations.
Royal Navy warships were normally designed with imperial concerns in
mind. Their range, seaworthiness, and habitability reflected possible use
for global tasks. These features become apparent when compared with
similar ships in rival fleets. Although it was once normal to criticise British
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 119
warship designs, the latest research has done much to revive the reputa-
tions of ship designers, shipbuilders, and the Admiralty.30
In the 1850s, the RN radically reformed the career structure for ratings.
Hitherto, sailors had signed on for the commission of the ships and were
released after three years. In early 1853, a Committee recommended that
seamen should enter the RN for a term, with twenty years of ‘Continuous
and General Service’ qualifying for a pension. The pension was a retainer
so that the sailor could be recalled in the event of war.31 These new ratings
would be naval specialists distinct from merchant seaman. The new system
would also generate a reserve, and to reinforce the effect, other seafaring
men were drawn into the reserve, direct from the merchant service. In
1857, a regulation uniform for all sailors was introduced, emphasising
their new professional status as warship sailors. It also helped to build the
unique identity of the seamen, who by the high Victorian age had been
transformed from a colourful rogue into a model of working-class recti-
tude. The fact that these men now served longer raised the average age of
naval ratings, while improved pay, promotion, and transferable skills made
a naval career, hitherto a short-term choice, more attractive to settled and
ambitious men. In 1859 the Royal Naval Reserve was added to Continuous
Service, creating the modern naval career structure for ratings. The
reservists were regularly drilled. In 1914, the RN mobilised the largest
fleet the world had ever seen, entirely from its own resources in a matter
of days. With continuous service, the use of physical punishment declined,
and in 1866 it was effectively suspended.
The all-volunteer, long service ratings were basic material from which
the RN was built, and the Petty Officers who led them were the backbone
of excellence. These men enabled the RN to deploy effectively across the
globe, with trained and experienced personnel rather than the short
service, conscripts who made up much of the manpower in other navies.
In view of the distances involved, such men, like their army counterparts,
were essential for an imperial force.
For a fresh insight into the officer corps, Andrew Gordon’s The Rules of
Game is invaluable, stressing the increasingly rigid command systems and
lack of scope for individual initiative in the telegraph- and semaphore-con-
trolled navy of the late nineteenth century. His denouement at Jutland
shows the limits of men and education after a century without a major
war.32 In some ways, that was the price of success: successful deterrence in
the long term leads to a lack of contact with real war.

Decline
It is important to recognise the impact of the declinist/continentalist liter-
ature of the 1960s and 1970s on historical understanding of imperial
issues. With empire and naval power consigned to the dustbin of history,
many scholars were anxious to explain the process. Assuming the decline
120 A. Lambert
in manufacturing output, imperial possession and naval strength, when set
alongside membership of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
and the European Economic Community (EEC), indicated a process of
managed decline and overriding European concerns that they were
unduly hasty in seeking out the long-term causes of decline and backdat-
ing the decline of British power. In the early 1970s, Michael Howard’s The
Continental Commitment and Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power
provided key elements to the first major text of the modern, naval history
revival, Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery of 1976.
Arguing that the story had come to a close, Kennedy linked naval power
with economic activity, with the emphasis on industrial output to explain
the process of his title. The naval defence of empire was not a priority,
empire was over; Europe and the near continent were the key issues. For
the period under review, the strategic redistribution of the Fisher era was
portrayed, using a contemporary metaphor, as the recall of the legions,
with the obvious implication that it indicated decline and presaged fall.
This school of thought downplayed the importance of extra-European
concerns in the making of British policy and of the Navy in British secur-
ity. The immense human cost of the First World War on land only added
to a sense of naval irrelevance. Fortunately, more recent work, notably by
Avner Offer, has redressed this balance, while the end of the Cold War has
shifted the contemporary strategic picture back towards global capabilities
and sea-based power. Now that current national strategy is essentially com-
puterised, Corbett33 the past will be read in a very different way. The
gloom of the 1970s has passed: the bipolar world with an obsessive focus
on the inner German frontier is only a memory, and historians have to
consider new questions. Some have even dared to argue that the empire
was not such a bad thing.34

Defence coordination
Global empires only work if they are well organised and exploit their
strengths; if they try to be strong everywhere, they collapse under the
weight of their defences. Like other successful empires, the British relied
on superior communications to secure an advantage over rivals and to
enable the centre to direct the periphery. In 1800, Mail Packets had been
the fastest strategic communication system, but the Government was quick
to exploit the new power of steam for strategic communications. By 1830,
naval steamers linked Britain with the Mediterranean every month. Within
a decade, private companies were being subsidised to carry Government
mail on oceanic routes, notably Cunard on the Atlantic and Peninsula &
Orient across the Indian Ocean.35 These and other mail companies con-
tinued to provide shipping services, auxiliary warships, and naval reserve
postings throughout the period. However, steamships were soon overtaken
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 121
by a far faster system – the submarine telegraph cable. Developed in the
1840s, the cable immediately attracted naval interest. It was first used to
link Dover and Calais in 1851 and rapidly created a new type of global
power. By 1855, a line connected London with Balaklava. Effective real-
time or near-real-time global communication improved central control,
reducing local freedom of action and allowing centrally directed forces to
reinforce any region under threat or counter-attack where the enemy was
vulnerable. The spread of the system was dramatic: North America was con-
nected by 1867, India by 1870, Australia and Japan by 1872, Brazil in 1873,
and the rest of the world quickly thereafter. Links between the dominant
Eastern Telegraph Company and the Government were close, and in times
of crisis, notably the occupation of Egypt in 1882, the company went
beyond what might be expected of a commercial concern.36 The Zulu War
of 1878 was one of the first significant conflicts in which strategic commu-
nications were used to shift forces, with a new cable being laid from Aden
to Durban to improve central control.37 Empire, however defined, was now
defended as a single unit, rather than as a series of geographically and
intellectually distinct areas. In 1899, it took only two months to lay 3,000
miles of cable from the Cape Verde Islands to Cape Town for the South
African War. Little wonder the French considered the cable network more
important to British power than the navy.38
These developments, although essentially commercial, were aided,
directed, and influenced by the application of Government funds. At every
stage, speed and reliability were enhanced, improving the ability of the
centre to control the periphery, and more significantly, of the centre to
direct forces from the centre or other parts of the periphery to reinforce a
threatened area. In this way, the empire, formal and informal, was welded
into a single strategic entity.39 Improved communications were especially
useful to Britain, because Britain alone had the capability to use the
information to move her forces across the globe. She could also deny such
communications to an enemy. As Britain controlled the sea, and almost all
the submarine cables, and cable-laying tonnage, enemy cables could be cut
or re-used. In 1914, Britain had a global communications strategy – built on
command of the sea.40 The information edge that Britain developed in the
nineteenth century, through her dominance of systems and the sea, facilit-
ated the next step – the growth of communications intelligence gathering.
These advantages meant that the effective power of British forces grew
rather than their size, because improved central control reduced the need
for local forces. After 1815, Britain applied substantial financial and tech-
nical assets to the provision of superior long-distance communications, pio-
neering oceanic steamships and submarine telegraph cables. However, the
effective exploitation of epochal developments in ship, weapon, and com-
munication technology relied on a relatively unnoticed element in the
totality of imperial defence infrastructure. The dry dock was the pivot
around which British Imperial strategy was transformed between 1860 and
122 A. Lambert
1890. They were the basic requirements for sustained local operations.41
The spread of docking accommodation between 1860 and 1890 was driven
by technical change, commercial pressure, and strategic need. Dry docks
would enable the RN to send squadrons to any part of the globe and main-
tain them there. They were vital to the effective use of naval units. In areas
of overwhelming strategic need, where economic activity was inadequate to
support them, docks were built in Imperial Fortresses of Bermuda, Gibral-
tar, and Malta. Elsewhere, the Navy encouraged the construction of com-
mercial docks, providing government financial assistance to ensure they
were configured for, and gave priority to warships. The emergence of an
effective policy followed a period of haphazard development at the outer
reaches of empire.42
To exploit new opportunities to act on a global scale, the British state
required a London-based system for defence coordination, initially, in the
1880s the Colonial Defence Committee and from 1920 the Committee of
Imperial Defence. This process is examined in Nicholas d’Ombrain’s
essential War Machinery and High Policy: Defence Administration in Peacetime
Britain: 1902–1914.43 d’Ombrains’ emphasis that the CID failed to settle
and direct national strategy and policy has been challenged by Avner
Offer in The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation which contends that
a well-developed maritime economic warfare strategy was in place in
1914.44 The Anglo-Saxon and dominion ideas that underpinned these pre-
war plans were consistent with the long-term trends in British strategy and
the failure to prepare a continental army before August 1914. If we accept
the logic of Offer’s study, as many have, a long-term British strategy for
the defence of her vital interests emerges.
These interests came in two distinct categories: purely strategic threats
posed by European hegemonic powers, especially those that violated the
independence and integrity of Belgium, and global economic security, for
investments, trade, and shipping. Developing a consistent and, before
1914, effective strategy that could support British diplomacy in securing
these ends on low estimates was a work of genius. It ensured that when the
guns started firing, the British were ready for global war and the rest of
Europe was still living with the delusion that the conflicts would be over by
Christmas. Despite this, Britain failed to deter Germany in 1914 because
the threat of an economic war of exhaustion was not one the Germans
recognised as vital, as Offer observes, it was ‘not visible enough’.45

Deterrence
So far, this chapter has focussed on areas where the literature has
addressed the key questions. However, there remains a major gap at the
heart of the subject. There is no overall concept of British strategy for
the period into which the naval component can be integrated. The
whole is less than the sum of its parts.
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 123
The British concept of imperial defence was based on the need to
avoid war: to this end it relied on a global strategic vision, using highly
mobile, centrally controlled forces that could counter any attack on
British interests, metropolitan or imperial, by attacking the most vulner-
able point of the aggressors’ own possessions. It was a deterrent strategy.
The security of British possessions and dominions was underpinned by
the threat that any attack on British interests would provoke an over-
whelming naval response, including the destruction of vital commercial,
political, and naval assets, economic exhaustion, and exposure to other
powers. The key to this strategy was the ability to mount a realistic threat
and to ensure any aggressor, real or potential, understood the limits of
British tolerance.
The ‘Trent Crisis’ of 1861 demonstrated that Britain did not need to
station forces in Canada to meet the US Army. Instead, Britain could rely
on deterrence.46 In 1878 and 1885, Russian threats to Turkey and
Afghanistan were deterred by the assembly of a power-projection fleet at
Spithead, not the local defences of the British Empire.47 While the Rus-
sians feared for St. Petersburg, Sydney and Melbourne were safe. Britain’s
global empire could not be secured against serious attack by local
defences. This was a matter of basic economics and political expediency.
Britain would not pay for a high level of local defence, nor would her
colonies. The only strategy that combined real power, global reach, and
relative economy was one based on the offensive strength of the RN.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the RN had the power to destroy any
rival navy, securing British interests and releasing the fleet for further
offensive operations, including economic blockades, seizure of overseas or
isolated territories as diplomatic assets, and attacks on major cities. British
thinking envisaged a war of limited commitment of manpower and
money, husbanding resources and strength for another twenty-five-year
conflict like that with revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe. While this
strategy could not destroy a major power, it would exhaust their military
and economic resources and ultimately break their political will. Sea
power gave Britain the ability to attack an enemy at their weakest or most
sensitive point, rather than simply countering an attack at the point it
crossed the imperial frontier. Mastery of global communications and the
development of suitable base facilities, especially dry docks, ensured that a
maritime striking force could be dispatched from the centre of the
empire, staging through the global chain of bases, to project power against
any rival, in any theatre. That this did not have to be done between 1856
and 1914 reflects the success of centrally directed deterrence in reducing
the threat to the empire.
From the ‘Trent’ through Fashoda to the two Moroccan crises, Britain
consistently and coherently employed carefully signalled deterrence to
secure her interests and avoid war. This concept provides the only ana-
lytical tool capable of explaining long-term success, low budgets, and the
124 A. Lambert
resolution of specific case studies. It also has the benefit of making the
Baltic far more important in the history of ‘Imperial Defence’ than any
British overseas territory. The RN did not ‘defend’ the empire, it applied
pressure wherever a potential enemy was most exposed. From the St.
George’s Day Review in 1856 that celebrated the role of Britain’s right
arm in the winning of the ‘Crimean’ War, a global conflict that had
exposed Russia’s weakness through maritime campaigns and economic
warfare,48 to the Fleet Review of July 1914, the assembly of a vast fleet on
the coast of Britain was a gesture of enormous power and irresistible
diplomatic weight. It only required to be used with skill to secure the
compliance of any rational state.

Global strategy – common doctrine

From the 1850s, the British developed a global strategy that worked; typ-
ically they only began to reduce it to theory afterwards. John Colomb’s
work of 1867, which emphasised sea communications was a key document,
which was understood by key policy-makers like Admiral Sir Alexander
Milne49 and G S Clarke, and developed through the growth of historical
understanding, begun by John Knox Laughton culminating in Julian
Corbett’s key works. Corbett added a touch of political and economic
realism injected by his close contact with the Admiralty regime of Sir John
Fisher 1904–1910. While his 1911 text Some Principles of Maritime Strategy is
the strategic primer, England in the Mediterranean and England in the Seven
Year’s War are the Grand Strategic, and The Campaign of Trafalgar the stra-
tegic case study. These were the teaching texts of Edwardian imperial
defence, given as lectures at the Army Staff College and the Naval War
Course, before being published.
Increasingly influenced by a sophisticated understanding of Clausewitz
and the wealth of historical learning now made available, Corbett pro-
vided his countrymen with the intellectual tools to build a modern war-
fighting system, and, by no coincidence this is precisely what they did.
Avner Offer has demonstrated that pre-war work by men like CIDS Secret-
ary Maurice Hankey and successive Directors of the Naval Intelligence
Division Britain went to war in 1914 better prepared for a global conflict
than any other power.
A better understanding of the key policy-makers of the pre-1914 period
would help to broaden our understanding of the problems of imperial
defence. Stephen Roskill’s biography of Hankey50 is a beginning, but a
modern study of George Sydenham Clarke who exercised a key role in
imperial defence from the 1880s to the First World War would be a major
addition to the literature. At various times an Engineer, Fortress builder,
Secretary to the Colonial Defence Committee and then the Committee
of Imperial Defence, a Colonial Governor, and maritime strategist
Clarke’s contemporary writings and a lucid, if not very revealing memoir,
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 125
illuminate an important element in the thinking of the period and suggest
that more might be found in his career.51
Clarke was among the first to integrate the concept of coast defence, a
military task, with the reality of RN global primacy to produce a scale of
coastal fortification appropriate to the real needs of the empire, and
necessarily far below that deemed essential by careerist military engineers,
alarmist domestic politicians, and nervous colonial legislatures. His work
helped to make the defence of empire more rational and efficient by the
beginning of the twentieth century. Similarly, the wider field of pre-1900
defence cooperation provides opportunities for wider research.
Having settled the global strategy of a world empire, there remains the
question of how the RN carried on the day-to-day business of securing,
extending, and integrating the empire, formal or otherwise, into a cohesive
unit. The growing recognition that indigenous peoples had their own
perspective on the process, and that British presence was far from cohesive,
has produced a more sophisticated understanding of the RN in action.
Barry Gough’s Gunboat Frontier: British Maritime Ascendancy and Northwest
Coast Indians, 1846–1890 of 198452 examined the British Columbia
experience, while Jane Samson’s Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority
in the Pacific Islands53 stretches the concept to examine the underlying ideo-
logies of the naval officers and their conflict with other Europeans in a
region where formal control was not established.
In his essay ‘Profit and Power: Informal Empire, the Navy and Latin
America’, Gough overtly links naval history with the Cain and Hopkins
debate on gentlemanly capitalism through a regional study. It is highly
significant that this paper appeared in a collection debating the new
approach to imperial history.54 Naval historians have to take their ideas
and join in wider debates rather than rest content with exchanging ideas
among themselves.
Empires, however defined, are about control. The progress of maritime
empire was nowhere more obvious than in the process of chart-making.
The RN was the primary agency for making the oceans of the world, and
their vital sailing routes British. By drawing the charts and filling them
with suitably imperial names, Britain took possession of the seas, reduced
the connecting spaces between her trading entrepots, colonial outposts,
and the metropole, improving the speed and profitability of the system.
The same process was equally significant in opening up the oceans of the
world, and more especially the complex coastal waters of rival powers, and
key choke points, to facilitate the offensive coastal operations that were
the basis of British war-planning for a European conflict, and on which
the whole structure of deterrence rested. Older histories of naval survey-
ing, notably the Admiral Day chronicle the achievement but have little to
say about the purpose of the activity.55 While the literature on hydro-
graphy is large, a few examples will have to suffice. Lambert provides a
case study of the role of chart-making in British strategy.56 Andrew David’s
126 A. Lambert
The Voyage of HMS Herald 1852–1861 continues a strong run of work on
Australian charting and stresses a variety of imperial, colonial, and scient-
ific themes, notably the importance of new steam shipping routes.57 Often
dressed up as high-minded services to civilisation, maritime safety or
science, the British hydrographic effort was, in truth, part of the great
project to reduce the world to order, to impose British ideas, values and
control where necessary, and ensure access to contested waters, be they
choke points like the Danish narrows or oceanic steam ship routes like the
Torres Strait. Deep ocean research was pioneered to enable the laying of
that quintessentially British imperial project, the oceanic submarine tele-
graph cable.
That hydrographic knowledge and skills were critical to serious war-
planning was soon recognised, and by the 1850s, the hydrographer was the
leading source of strategic advice and a key player in many aspects of naval
policy and planning. Surveying Officers were the key planners at all levels
of war in the nineteenth century, notably for operational planning in the
Baltic and the Black Sea during the Crimean War.58 In addition to the
more obvious information, such as charts of naval bases and strategic
narrows, the RN also developed an understanding of oceanic phenomena
that would influence operations, notably tides, currents, and wind pat-
terns. The first fully reliable set of tidal data for the English Channel in the
1840s was the key element in planning against a possible French invasion.
All officers were requested to report any information they considered
useful to the hydrographer; the entire officer corps was drawn into
the work of marine science in 1849 when the Admiralty issued: A Manual
of Scientific Enquiry prepared for the use of Her Majesty’s Navy: and adapted for
Travellers in General. Authors drawn from the scientific elite, including
Darwin, provided guidance on methods of observation and recording for
all relevant branches of science: astronomy, magnetism, hydrography,
tides, geography, geology, earthquakes, mineralogy, meteorology, atmos-
pheric waves, zoology, botany, ethnology, medicine, and statistics. It was
written for men of ‘good intelligence and fair acquirement’. A hint of
pecuniary reward was held out to encourage application. In addition to
the exact sciences, social and ethnographic evidence should be acquired.
The potential results of issuing the volume were immense; the Admiralty
had ‘cruisers in every sea; and where the ships of the navy are not present,
it sometimes happens that the vessels of the merchant are conducted with
much intelligence and enterprise’.59 It did not need to be said that such
information had a direct naval utility.
The mixture of high science and practical naval intelligence-gathering
enshrined in the Manual demonstrated the wider ambitions of the Admi-
ralty. Foreign ports were to be assessed, their docks, repair facilities, engin-
eering works, coal stocks, tides and other key aspects recorded. Charts were
to be made, and the example supplied included a fort, in case the strategic
purpose should escape the less-gifted officer. Unknown coasts and seas
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 127
were to be analysed.60 In the age of steam, navies and steam ship com-
panies sought certainty. The RN provided HMS Challenger for a pioneering
three-year oceanographic voyage in 1872, the multi-disciplinary research
team pioneering the modern study of oceanography. This was science in
the service of empire, knowledge for profit and for war. While the science
and the voyage of the Challenger have been studied, the imperial benefits
await their analyst. The intellectual attainments required to examine such
diverse issues have been resolved in the US.61 The central role of naval
science deserves to be better integrated with the study of science, know-
ledge, power, trade and strategy of the empire.

Imperial bases
While most accounts of British bases follow John Colomb’s focus on coal
supplies, these were less important than the infrastructure. From the 1740s,
when the first extra-European examples were built at Bombay, the real indi-
cator of imperial might was the growth of local and metropolitan partner-
ships to construct and maintain dry dock accommodation. Docks were far
more costly than coal and from the 1840s became the litmus test of imperial
defence. Docks enabled the colonies and dominions to show their commit-
ment to the critical naval defence of empire and increase the presence of
British naval forces while also securing a very useful commercial asset. That
such docks were also located at cable communication centres and offered
access to engineering facilities made them unequalled force multipliers –
Britain could operate ships around the globe and sustain them.
The truly ‘Imperial’ parts of the empire were, by the 1870s, very
limited. Only Malta, Gibraltar, and Bermuda were imperial bases, naval
fortresses entirely funded by the imperial Government. Other bases were
partnerships, like Sydney, Auckland, Halifax, Esquimault, Hong Kong,
Cape Town, and Bombay (Mumbai). These partnerships were clearly and
consistently established.62

Consequences
In 1914, the British Empire went to war to uphold the European balance.
The pre-war strategic planning worked, the empire quickly slipped into
gear, and by Christmas the conflict had been confined to the European
theatre, German communications were cut, her cruisers were annihilated,
and her colonies swept up and turned to imperial use. The human, mater-
ial, and industrial resources of the world were harnessed to the war in
Europe; it was a truly remarkable performance, the master narrative of
which was very properly carried in Julian Corbett’s neglected masterpiece
Naval Operations.
Despite the pre–war planning, Britain’s commitment to the First World
War soon escalated such that Britain ended up providing not only the
128 A. Lambert
greatest part of the naval, financial, and industrial power of the alliance,
as had been expected, but also a very substantial part of the military force
as well. A major problem for attempts to comprehend the nature of naval
role before 1914 has been the tendency to treat the period as little more
than the inevitable build-up to the total war being waged during
1916–1917. This approach misses the key point that British interests and
policy were directed towards the avoidance of such a catastrophe and that
August 1914 represented the failure of British policy.
Similarly, the very success of pre–war planning for imperial defence,
and the ease with which the oceans were cleared of German cruisers, has
diverted attention from the quality of the effort and the long-term basis of
such planning. The threat of cruiser warfare on the open oceans was
taken very seriously throughout this period. Fortunately, the answer
remained constant. Once steam power became essential for oceanic
warfare, suitable cruiser squadrons with superior communication facilities
and docking accommodation would have been quite adequate against any
conceivable combination of French, Russian, or German ships: all three
countries lacked the ships, bases, and facilities for a serious campaign.
Between 1914 and 1918, the RN had remarkably little to do outside
Europe, the war was over by Christmas. Paul Halpern’s A Naval History of
the World War One provides a fine summary of these campaigns, while the
first of Hew Strachan’s three-volume The First World War places the Pacific
and African theatres in a broader context.63

Conclusions
The main lines of argument about the role of the RN in the ‘defence of
Empire’ revolve around the relative importance of European and imperial
issues, their interdependence, and the fluid nature of British strategy.
Since the end of the Cold War, historians have begun to revisit this area,
with empires and their upkeep becoming a major interest. Although
excellent work has been done by the scholars highlighted in this essay,
there is much more left to be done if we are to understand how the RN
helped to secure a unique global empire of trade and investment. Before
we try to create neat constructs that link the past with the present, we must
be very careful to understand why those who were making the big
decisions acted as they did, to see them in their own context, rather than
judge them by our standards. Hindsight is a powerful analytical tool, but it
is no substitute for understanding.
Naval historians have to exploit the current interest in empires to join
the debates, bringing their own unique insights and resources to bear.
The balance between the local and colonial-/dominion-based studies
and those focussed on the centre needs to be redressed, naval policy and
strategy needs to be integrated with other aspects of Britain’s overall inter-
national position, from diplomacy and trade to Entente arrangements and
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 129
communications technology. Fortunately, we have a rich legacy of work on
which to build, and many important contributors to these debates are cur-
rently at work in the field.
Naval historians have to ask better questions. The key requirement is to
understand the British Empire as a unique institution with its own distinct
strategy and strategic culture. The defence of empire was not an issue of
peripheries and local problems, nor was it the subject so hotly debated by
vote-hungry dominion leaders and their historians. Ultimately, it was about
using the sea for trade and communications, deterrence, and war-fighting.
The RN ensured that a global empire of trade and capital could use the sea.
Between 1856 and 1918, the RN met these demands in peace and, when all
else failed, in war. While the Imperial Government and the dominions were
willing and able to pay for naval mastery, the empire was safe.
The empire was the dominant concern of the British state issue and
central to defence planning throughout the period under review. The
First World War, for all the cost and horror of the European land war,
was a temporary aberration. Once Germany had been defeated, the
British wanted to re-establish a European balance so that they could get
back to their core activity of trade and empire, and when they rebuilt
their forces post-war, it was new ships and bases they wanted, not
armoured divisions. Only through the possession of overwhelming naval
power could the empire be defended, and even then by deterrence
rather than war-fighting. Despite this, the political leadership accepted
the Washington and London Naval Disarmament Treaties which ended
British naval superiority and reduced Britain’s international standing. In
the late 1930s, Britain lacked the naval power to deter and the reserves to
fight a major war. Continentalists argued that sea power was a waning
asset in the twentieth century. In truth, the Washington Treaty process,
by unilaterally reducing the size of the RN and increasing its age, while
air and land forces remained unlimited, destroyed the deterrent basis of
imperial strategy. Britain, having acquired a global empire, wanted
nothing more than to be left alone to enjoy it. A dominant RN was the
insurance policy on the property, failure to keep up the payments
resulted in overstretch, weakness, and ultimately in a series of disasters
between November 1941 and the March 1942. Sea power and strategy
secured the British Empire for 200 years. In the post-imperial era, this
simple fact was largely ignored. Now the tide has turned: it is time to put
the RN back at the centre of British and imperial history.

Notes
1 D.G. Boyce (ed.), The Crisis of British Power: The Imperial and Naval Papers of the
Second Earl of Selbourne, 1895–1910 (London, 1990), 129–130; B. Gough, ‘Profit
and Power: Informal Empire, the Navy and Latin America’ in R.E. Dumett
(ed.), The New Debate on Empire (London, 1999), 63–81.
130 A. Lambert
2 R.A. Preston, Canada and “Imperial Defense”: A Study of the Origins of the British
Commonwealth’s Defense Organisation, 1867–1919 (Durham, NC, 1967) argues
this point in the title and throughout the book.
3 R. Robinson and J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians: The Climax of Imperialism
on the Dark Continent (London, 1961); P. Cain and A. Hopkins, British Imperial-
ism: Innovation and Enterprise: 1688–1914 (London, 1993).
4 See Dumett, Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate on
Empire.
5 Naval history has to reach out and join in these debates, exploiting the rich
opportunities provided by a sudden surge of interest and ensure that the
central importance of the RN is recognised.
6 J. Wong, Deadly Dreams: Opium and the ‘Arrow’ War (1856–1860) (Cambridge,
1998); G.S. Graham, The China Station: War and Diplomacy 1830–1860 (Oxford,
1978) remains useful.
7 D. Baugh, ‘Great Britain’s Blue Water Policy, 1689–1815’, International History
Review, 10 (1988): 33–58; Baugh, ‘British Strategy during the First World War
in the Context of Four Centuries: Blue-Water versus Continental Commitment’
in D.M. Masterson (ed.), Naval History: The Sixth Symposium of the U.S. Naval
Academy (Wilmington, 1987), 85–110.
8 S.R.B. Smith, ‘Public Opinion, the Navy and the City of London: The Drive for
British Naval Expansion in the Late Nineteenth Century’, War & Society, 9
(1991): 29–50.
9 J. Charmley, Splendid Isolation? Britain and the Balance of Power 1874–1914
(London, 1999).
10 R. Williams, Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy
1899–1915 (Yale, 1991).
11 R. Mackay, Balfour: Intellectual Statesman (Oxford, 1985).
12 I. McGibbon, The Path to Gallipoli: Defending New Zealand 1840–1915 (Auckland,
1991).
13 N. Lambert, Australia’s Naval Heritage: Imperial Strategy and the Australia Station
1880–1909 (Canberra, 1998).
14 J. Moses and C. Pugsley (eds), The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions,
1871–1919 (Claremont, California, 2000).
15 N. Tracy (ed.), The Collective Naval Defence of the Empire, 1900–1940 (Aldershot,
1997).
16 A.D. Lambert, The Foundations of Naval History: Sir John Laughton, the RN and the
Historical Profession (London, 1997) examines the growth of a serious investiga-
tion of the naval past, alongside the growth of national strategic concerns and
the historical profession.
17 J.F. Beeler, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone–Disraeli Era, 1866–1880 (Stan-
ford, 1997), 35–37 and Table 1.
18 Childers draft letter to Earl Clarendon, The Foreign Secretary 23 January 1869
in J. Hattendorf et al. (eds), British Naval Documents 1204–1960 (London, 1993),
593–595.
19 F. Egerton, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Phipps Hornby (London, 1896), 145–150.
20 A.D. Lambert, ‘Great Britain and the Baltic, 1809–1890’ in Rystad et al. (eds),
In Quest of Trade and Security: The Baltic in Great Power Politics, Part One
1500–1900 (Lund, 1994), 297–334.
21 A.D. Lambert, ‘Australia, the Trent Crisis of 1861 and the Strategy of Imperial
Defence’, in D. Stevens and J. Reeve (eds), Southern Trident: Strategy, History and
the Rise of Australian Naval Power (Crows Nest NSW, 2001), 99–118.
22 A.J. Marder, An Anatomy of British Sea Power: Naval Policy in the Pre Dreadnought
Era (London, 1940); A.J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The RN in
the Fisher Era, 5 volumes (Oxford, 1961–1970).
 Royal Navy and the defence of empire 131
23 R.F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford, 1973), 374–378; J.T. Sumida, In Defence
of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy 1889–1914
(London, 1989), 338; N.A. Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia,
SC, 1999).
24 J. Beeler, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone-Disraeli Era, 1866–1880 (Stanford,
1997).
25 J. Beeler (ed.), D. Schurman, Imperial Defence 1868–1887 (London, 2000).
26 Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy (eds), Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial
Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman (London, 1997).
27 London 1903. Clowes died the following year. The book was reprinted in
1996–1997. For a recent assessment of Clowes’s work, see A.D. Lambert,
‘Reflections of a History of the RN’, The Naval Review (October 1997): 392–399.
28 D.K. Brown, From Warrior to Dreadnought (London, 1997) and D.K. Brown, The
Grand Fleet (London, 1999) cover this period and offer a wealth of insight for
the non-technical layman.
29 D.J. Lyon and R. Winfield, The Steam and Sail Navy List 1815–1889 (London,
2004).
30 J. Beeler, The Birth of the Battleship: British Capital Ship Design 1870–1881
(Rochester, 2001) is a very good example of a case study exploiting the full
range of archival sources.
31 For a full-length discussion of this problem and solution, see R. Taylor,
Manning the RN: The Reform of the Recruiting System, 1847–1861. University of
London Unpublished MA thesis; E.L. Rasor, Reform in the RN: A Social History of
the Lower Deck, 1850 to 1880 (Hamden Conn, 1976) provides a wider context. J.
Wells, The RN: An Illustrated Social History 1870–1982 (Gloucester, 1994) pro-
vides an overall narrative of the period.
32 A. Gordon, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command (London,
1996).
33 The Fundamentals of British Naval Doctrine BR 1806 (London, 1995), and sub-
sequent editions. The impact of Corbett’s Some Principles of Maritime Strategy of
1911 on this text is profound.
34 N. Fergusson, Empire (London, 2004) is also a major series on Channel Four
Television.
35 A.D. Lambert, ‘The Introduction of Steam’ in R. Gardiner (ed.), Steam, Steel
and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 (London, 1992).
36 H. Barty-King, Girdle Round the Earth: The Story of Cable and Wireless (London,
1979), 73–74. Eastern Telegraph was one of the constituent parts of the
modern company.
37 P.M. Kennedy, ‘Imperial Cable Communications and Strategy, 1870–1914’,
English Historical Review, 86 (1971).
38 Ibid., 748.
39 For an example of an imperial defence asset that linked the disparate elements
of the system, see S.J.A. Earle, A Question of Defence: The Story of Green Hill Fort,
Thursday Island (Thursday Island, 1993). This small fort covered the key ship-
ping route and coal depot in the Torres Straits. It was built and manned by the
Queensland Government, with the Imperial government providing guns.
40 D.R. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics,
1851–1945 (New York, 1991); N. Lambert, ‘Transformation and Technology in
the Fisher Era: The Impact of the Communications Revolution’, Journal of Stra-
tegic Studies, 27 (2004): 272–297.
41 G.S. Graham, Great Britain and the Indian Ocean 1810–1850 (Oxford, 1967),
305–328.
42 A.D. Lambert, ‘Wirtschafliche macht, technologischer Vorsprung und Imperi-
ale Stärke: Grossbritannien als einzigartige globale macht 1860 bis 1890’ in
132 A. Lambert
M. Epkenhansand G.P. Gross (eds), Das Militär und der Aufbruch in die Moderne
1860 bis 1890 (München, 2003).
43 N. d’Ombrain, War Machinery and High Policy: Defence Administration in Peacetime
Britain: 1902–1914 (Oxford, 1973).
44 A. Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford, 1989).
45 Ibid., 404.
46 A.D. Lambert, ‘Winning without Fighting: British Grand Strategy and Its
Application to the US, 1815–1865’ in B.A. Lee and K.F. Walling (eds), Stra-
tegic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael Handel (London,
2003), 164–193.
47 A.D. Lambert, ‘Great Britain and the Baltic, 1809–1890’ in Rystad et al. (eds)
In Quest of Trade and Security: The Baltic in Great Power Politics. Part One
1500–1900, 297–334.
48 A.D. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–1856
(Manchester, 1990).
49 J. Beeler (ed.), Letters and Papers of Admiral Sir A. Milne. Vol. I (Aldershot,
2004).
50 S.W. Roskill, Hankey – Man of Secrets. Volume I 1877–1916 (London, 1970).
51 G.S. Clarke, Fortification (London, 1890 and 1907); G.S. Clarke, Imperial Defence
(London, 1897), G.S. Clarke, The Navy and the Nation (with James Thursfield)
(London, 1897); G.S. Clarke, My Working Life (London, 1927); G.S. Clarke,
Studies of an Imperialist (London, 1927).
52 B. Gough, Gunboat Frontier: British Maritime Ascendancy and Northwest Coast
Indians, 1846–1890 (Vancouver, 1984). See also D.L. Smith (ed.), A Tour of
Duty in the Pacific Northwest: E A Porcher and HMS Sparrowhawk, 1865–1868 (Fair-
banks, Alaska, 2000).
53 J. Samson, Imperial Benevolence: Making British Authority in the Pacific Islands
(Hawaii,1998).
54 R.E. Dumett (ed.), Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate
on Empire (London, 1999), 68–81.
55 A. Day, The Admiralty Hydrographic Service: 1795–1919 (London, 1967), 266–269,
326 for the Baltic issues.
56 A.D. Lambert, ‘ “This is all we want”. Great Britain and the Baltic Approaches
1815–1914’, in J. Sevaldsen (ed.), Britain and Denmark: Political, Economic and
Cultural Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Copenhagen, 2003), 147–169.
57 A. David, The Voyage of HMS Herald 1852–1861 (Melbourne, 1995).
58 See Lambert 1990 for Captains Sulivan and Spratt.
59 Sir J. Herschel (ed.), Admiralty Manual (London, 1849), iv. There were several
later editions.
60 M. Deacon, Scientists and the Sea 1650–1900: A study of Marine Science (London,
1971), 290–292.
61 G.E. Weir, An Ocean in Common: American Naval Officers, Scientists and the Ocean
Environment (Texas, 2001).
62 A.D. Lambert, ‘Wirtschafliche macht, technologischer Vorsprung und Imperi-
ale Stärke: Grossbritannien als einzigartige globale macht 1860 bis 1890’,
243–268.
63 P. Halpern, A Naval History of the World War One (Annapolis, 1994); H. Stra-
chan, The First World War: Volume 1 To Arms (Oxford, 2001).
7 The Royal Navy and imperial
defence, 1919–1956
Greg Kennedy

Following the end of the First World War, the Royal Navy (RN) was the
world’s most powerful naval force. It led in most areas of important
technological innovation and modern ship numbers; its combat
experience in the new environments of air and underwater warfare was
unsurpassed; problems of manning and manpower management had
been handled with efficiency during the unprecedented expansion of the
force during the war. A web of naval bases and shore installations, sup-
ported by the world’s most advanced communications network, created an
unsurpassed global supply, repair and replenishment system able to
sustain RN operations anywhere at anytime. The intelligence system,
which directed the positioning of both fleets and individual units, was one
of the most advanced in the world, gleaning information from human,
cable and radio sources; and, finally, doctrinal and training methods,
while not always recognized as such, were the most advanced in the
world.1 Therefore, from a purely naval point of view, the strategic situation
regarding the RN’s utility as a tool of empire seemed to rival that of the
glory days of the years immediately following 1815: global supremacy.
However, the shifting sands upon which international relations were
based after 1919 had a decisive impact on the utility of naval power as a
tool for British strategic planning on an imperial scale.2 The creation of
such uncertainty about the use of force and the place of the British Empire
within this New World Order created many questions then as to the size
and capabilities, as well as areas of operations, for the RN in its traditional
defence of the realm role in the interwar.3 World financial crises4 call for
collective security measures for the maintenance of world peace,5 and a
deeply ingrained desire for peace at almost any price in the British public
and political sectors (were many fervently wished to believe that there
would never be another World War) added to the political pitfalls
surrounding the fate of the RN in that period.6 Finally, in the aftermath of
the First World War, the dominion partners within the Imperial system
were enthused with a new sense of nationhood and independence, as well
as obligation. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa all main-
tained a certain degree of belief in the idea that Great Britain now owed
134 G. Kennedy
them something for their role in the war and that something was a greater
autonomy in defence and foreign affairs matters, as well as a greater role in
imperial decisions on such matters. The reality of the interwar period for
the RN was that it was still as important a political and strategic element in
the game of international relations than it ever had been, but there were
some questions as to its viability as an operational deterrent or threat in its
role as guardian of the status of the British Empire and its integrity.7
The commencement of a second major European war in 1939 seriously
undermined the utility of the political and diplomatic system of coercion
and deterrence that Britain had used, predominantly in concert with
naval, economic, and industrial power, to maintain an imperial status quo.
After September 1939, if the empire were to survive, the RN would have to
be rebuilt to the scale of a global, two-ocean navy once more, and power-
ful naval allies would have to be wooed into a security cooperation system
that had maritime power as its basis.8 The escalation of the war from a
general European war to a global conflict in December 1941 made the
achievement of both of those outcomes less dependent on British
resources and will alone. The Japanese attack on America ensured that
the Anglo-American naval alliance, seen by many throughout the interwar
as the only guarantor of world peace, was made a reality. The role for the
RN throughout the rest of the war was then simplified, as far as imperial
defence was concerned: to be operationally effective in non-European
waters and to act on a significant scale in the necessary regions of the
world that ensured both friend and foe alike and recognized the strategic
rights of the British Empire in the post-war world.9
In the post–Second World War world, the RN once more found itself
working in a changed international system: the Cold War. Questions of
the utility naval power in the atomic age, as well as the uncertainty of just
what the British Empire was to be after 1945, created much uncertainty
for the Royal Navy: where was it to operate; what missions would it
perform; and what were the objectives in imperial defence to be achieved
through the use of maritime power?10 By 1956, with the loss of India, the
British withdrawal from the Middle East underway, and British imperial
interests in the Far East in dispute, the RN had come to the end of its time
as the protector of formal empire.
In 1919, the technical supremacy of the RN was seen as a key compo-
nent of its ability to defend the British Empire. Submarines and aircraft
were the two new technologies that poised the greatest future threat to
imperial lines of communications. However, no obvious enemy was present
in 1919 with any substantial naval order of battle that possessed enough of
those two weapons in ample supply to threaten RN dominance. And, while
professional naval officers within the RN speculated on what their service’s
future threats might be, the environment for long-term acquisition and
building programmes of any sort of vessel was bleak. Public opinion, fed a
steady diet of sensationalist reporting, viewed the battleship as one of the
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 135
causes of the First World War. Calls for the limitation of naval arms, in an
attempt to pre-empt any future arms race that might lead once more to
catastrophe, put severe pressure on politicians and budgeters in Britain
and the Empire, to say nothing of the costs of having to pay for the First
World War itself. The concept of freezing all spending on new battleship
building was viewed by the Admiralty as a possible solution to maintaining
technological superiority in battleships, given that the RN held the tech-
nical and numerical superiority over all other navies in that class.11 Political
desires to reduce defence spending became manifest in the Ten Year Rule
put forward by the Cabinet to the Admiralty in 1920 in the belief that there
would be no major war in the next ten years, thus effectively freezing Admi-
ralty estimates. The US Navy (USN) was scheduled to produce a battleship
force equal to the RN’s, according to its 1916 naval construction program,
but there was no sign in 1920 of that potential threat achieving the reality
of parity. Japan was still an ally, according to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty,
and it possessed some new, modern battleships. The Italian fleet was not a
threat nor was that nation likely to build a large battlefleet any time soon,
so long as it did not perceive any French construction program being a
serious threat to the balance of power in the Mediterranean. The German
fleet was destroyed and the Russian fleet ineffective and obsolete.12 With
no serious naval threat present, British naval policy-makers were free to
consider a battleship-building holiday as a means of allowing future build-
ing programs to focus on cruisers, the true guardians of imperial lines of
communications. In 1921, the first steps were taken to attempt to marry
naval policy and disarmament diplomacy as a method of ensuring imperial
security.
The 1921/1922 Washington Naval Conference demonstrated the imper-
ial imperatives governing the RN’s situation, particularly the importance of
the Far East in future imperial defence planning. Rear-Admiral Sir A.E.M.
Chatfield, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff and Admiralty representative to
the Washington Naval Conference, wrote to his friend Vice-Admiral Sir
Roger Keyes (who became Deputy Chief of Naval Staff in November 1921)
on 28 October 1921,

I am not enamoured of my task in this expedition. There is no doubt

that if the Political Horizon is cleared up by the Diplomatists, the
sailors will find no difficulty in arriving at a basis for limitation and no
sailor wants to associate himself with a rigorous cutting down of the
Navy even if it is relative and proportionate, at any rate I don’t. We
stand also in an exceedingly difficult position in regard to American
and Japanese Naval officers. We stand to offend either by the amount
we associate with one or the other and the Japs at any rate will try and
claim us as their ally and friend. Sitting on the fence is uncomfortable
and we may be forced into an unpleasant position. However I expect
we shall manage alright!13
136 G. Kennedy
The results of that conference saw British policy-makers accept the United
States’ right to a navy equal to the RN in size and quality, while the Japan-
ese, French, and Italians were forced to accept lesser limits: the infamous
5–5–3–1.75–1.75 ratio in battleships.14 The discussions drifted apart on
issues concerning cruiser strength and capabilities, due in large part to
the RN’s need for this flexible class of vessel for imperial defence roles.
Arguing its need to police vastly greater sea lines of communications, the
Admiralty was unwilling to consider dropping its cruiser strength below 70
vessels in that class. As well, the RN desired a large number of smaller
cruisers, of 6,000 tons or less with guns no bigger than six inch, as this
type of cruiser was seen as being the most useful for imperial defence mis-
sions. This was in opposition to American and Japanese desires for bigger
10,000 ton, eight-inch-gun cruisers, a type more suitable for powers with
fewer bases and a doctrine that utilized cruisers as part of a battle fleet.
More important than the numerical or technical advantages that were
won at the conference, however, were the new international relationships
that existed for the RN after the Washington process was over.
Under advisement of the Foreign Office, pressure from dominions
such as Canada, and because of the greater importance now placed on
the Anglo-American strategic relationship, the Washington Naval Confer-
ence brought to an end the long-standing maritime alliance which was
the Anglo-Japanese Treaty system. Under Article 19 of the Treaty, Britain
would not be allowed to develop any extensive system of bases in the Far
East, apart from Singapore. As well, as part of the Nine Power and Four
Power agreements which were a part of the Washington system, Britain
agreed to an established power-sharing arrangement in China, all
mechanisms aimed at ensuring a peaceful international situation govern-
ing the future development of that nation while protecting Japanese,
British, and American interests in the region, along with other lesser-
European naval powers. British naval supremacy, in combination, would
have to serve to protect British imperial interests in the post-war world.
The Washington Treaty and its associated elements gave the RN the
assured position of the world’s greatest naval power, a prerequisite for
effective imperial defence.15
Throughout the rest of the 1920s, the Admiralty continued an ambi-
tious naval policy. British politicians acknowledged the need for a strong,
viable naval service in order to give authority to imperial policies in the
Middle East and Far East.16 The addition of new aircraft carriers and cruis-
ers to the fleet were in response to the need for the RN to be able to
project power in the far-flung reaches of the empire. Showing the flag and
maintaining the image of a nation willing to protect its empire through
the use of naval power and the newest weapons of naval warfare was a
prime concern of both politicians and the Admiralty alike.17 Despite the
challenges of air power to the RN’s traditional role as the prime enabler
of imperial defence, the Admiralty remained the dominant service for the
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 137
provision of that task. Admiral Keyes informed Rear-Admiral Chatfield in
October 1921 that, “You will find that we have at last started to officially
attack the Air Ministry but only indirectly at present through the Geddes
Committee”.18
By 1926, in the Review of Defence Policy, the RN’s continued centrality
to imperial defence was upheld. The Review called for a strong navy, built
to Washington Treaty standards and “air development should be continu-
ously watched with a view to ensuring that full opportunity should be
taken of utilizing air power towards the maintenance of sea passage”.
being key factors in any successful imperial defence strategy.19 In October
1926, the First Sea Lord, Admiral David Earl Beatty, speaking at his last
Imperial Conference, declared that in an age of no specific maritime
threat, effective imperial defence would only be assured: if strategic
freedom of movement was delivered through the maintenance of sea com-
munications; if the Far East, the most vulnerable area of the empire, was
protected through the completion of a first-rate naval base at Singapore;
and last, that all trade routes and ports that composed this global commu-
nication and transportation system were protected effectively from any
naval and air attack.20
Naval treaties and building programmes were not the only way in which
the RN attempted to mould its forces for the defence of empire in the
1920s. In fact, throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the RN played a vital and
proactive role in putting forward a vision of empire based on
naval/martial power, as well as promoted the connection between the
dominion navies and the RN. In the interwar period, the RN supported,
both politically and physically, a number of high-level missions. These
took the form of important ships, such as the HOOD, parading British
technological superiority to ports around the world. Equally, important
personages, such as Admirals of the Fleet, Lord Jellicoe and Earl Beatty, or
the Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Sir Maurice Hankey,
and countless minor officials and politicians, could be found journeying
to the far-flung corners of the empire to spread the word from the core
that the dominions were vital to the RN and indeed the Empire’s entire
defence scheme. Without the dominions and the squadrons of lighter
ships and support vessels, the trained crews, the naval facilities and the
willingness in time of war to once more contribute fiscally to an increase
in British naval power, the RN’s global capability and sustainability would
be badly impaired.21 Books, art works, periodicals, speaking tours, and
cinema were all various forms of media that the RN used and supported in
the interwar period to try and get such messages of strength, empire, and
maritime power to the disparate corners of the empire. And while this
role as symbol of empire is often acknowledged, it seldom gets the serious
scholarly study it deserves.
Tied to this lack of any understanding of the post-World War, one RN’s
views of empire is the paucity of works on that generation of senior naval
138 G. Kennedy
officer and their views of utility of the British Empire. There is as yet no
full-length monograph that analyses the writings, correspondence, and
policy statements of the senior naval officers of this period to show just
how imperial they really were. What schools of empire existed in the RN?
Were they all of one band in this world view? How conscious and success-
ful were the various methods of propaganda in support of imperial naval
strength? Were these aimed primarily at friends and allies to encourage
cooperation or were they part of a deterrence strategy and thus primarily
aimed at potential and real enemies? And it is here, in the area of studies
of the RN’s influence on culture and ideas of empire that there is much
work still to do. Little is written about what senior RN officers and civil ser-
vants thought empire was in this interwar period, or, what they thought
the outcomes of such exercises in propaganda were.22
The RN’s participation in the naval disarmament conferences which
followed the Washington conference were primarily aimed at safeguard-
ing issues directly related to imperial defence. The aim of the Admiralty
during the 1927 Geneva Conference was to try and ensure an adequate
number of heavy and light cruisers were left in place for protecting the
far-flung imperial lines of communication. The 1930 London Naval Con-
ference saw the RN attempt to craft a global limitation on capital ships
while at the same time limit such ship types as submarines, the greatest
threat then in existence to those sea lines of communication. Aircraft car-
riers, an emerging threat to the traditional cruisers used to police sea
lanes, were also seen as a threat that the Admiralty wished to restrict.
However, the advantage to be found in the Pacific through the use of such
a weapon system in covering the vast expanses forced the RN to acknow-
ledge the need to allow a higher percentage of that type of vessel that had
earlier been appreciated. The resulting restrictions on aircraft carriers
and cruisers of both types were not seen at that time as being detrimental
to the RN’s mission with regard to safeguarding those imperial highways.23
So long as a balance of power existed between Britain, its formal and
potential allies, and any possible aggressors, the British Empire’s ability to
mobilize resources in time of crisis was still intact. However, if the balance
of naval forces in European waters posed any added restrictions on the
RN’s ability to send major fleet units to the Indian and Pacific Oceans,
problems could occur. However, safeguarding British strategic interests at
that level was recognized as being primarily a role of British diplomacy. If
the international system changed to such an extent that Britain began to
acquire a greater number of naval powers as potential adversaries, then
British naval power would have to be increased. This was the core naval
aspect of discussions of the Defence Requirements Sub-Committee of the
Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) in the period 1932–1934.24
By 1935, with the rise of both German and Italian seapower and the
continuing willingness of Japan to pursue its own expansionist policy in
the Far East, the RN was forced to sponsor a twin path in order to achieve
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 139
some level of imperial security. Both policies were an attempt by the RN,
along with other parts of the British strategic, foreign policy-making elite,
to buy time for the construction of a new, more powerful fleet whose size
and capability would allow the RN to wage war on two fronts: the Far East
and Europe.25 The first policy path was to support certain aspects of
appeasement towards all the aggressor powers. Influenced by various fac-
tions such as the Dominions, the Treasury (who did not want to pay for
such a large increase in naval spending as was dictated by the need for a
modern imperial navy), and key political figures such as Neville Chamber-
lain, the RN was willing to concede various political issues in order to
ensure that (a) war did not occur before the RN was modernized and
expanded, and (b) that the RN did not find itself having to conduct
operations on three fronts simultaneously.26 In order to be able to balance
imperial defence requirements against the need to be ready to act
decisively in European waters, the RN was forced by circumstances to use
the political path as a means of providing the necessary time required to
prepare a truly global fleet. As part of that preparation, bases were
expanded around the world, infrastructure in Britain, in terms of produc-
tion capability and ship construction facilities, were increased, and
requests for the dominions to increase their contributions to the greater
naval good were made.27 The smaller squadrons, such as the West Indies
Squadron and the China Squadron, were not increased in any significant
fashion, in order that the maximum effort and resources could be
brought to bear on preparing the main fleet. Aircraft carriers, modern
heavy and light cruisers, with enhanced anti-aircraft batteries, were two of
the main areas of effort, as were the laying down of a new generation of
battleships. In all these matters of ship design and construction, the Japan-
ese navy was as great an influence as the German or Italian fleets, if not
greater. Fears about Japanese super-battleships, superior naval aircraft,
and a significant submarine threat were key elements in the Admiralty
planning-process for any future theatres of operations.28 However, the
threat of a German or Italian action in European waters taking place
simultaneously with major naval operations in the Far East was not the
only nightmare scenario for the RN. The fear of having to fight a major
naval war in the Pacific was a nightmare for Admiralty planners in 1937,
given the distances involved, the logistics strain supplying those operations
would have on fuel oil, ammunition and man power levels, the lack of
fleet units available, the age of many of those units available, and the
growing evidence that airpower was going to be a major factor in the Far
Eastern theatre as shown by the use of the weapon by Japan in its war with
China.29 Some meager attempts were made in the 1920s and 1930s to get
regional players, such as China and India, to increase their naval cap-
abilities, but these were never seriously developed options (it is unfortu-
nate that the current literature is devoid of any modern scholarly study of
the British attempts to increase India and Chinese naval capability in the
140 G. Kennedy
interwar). This great fear of overstretch was, however, only a reality if the
RN had to stand alone against the feared triple threat. Even that dreaded
scenario was manageable if a reliable naval ally could be found.
The second option for the RN was to actively search for strong naval
allies, albeit not always in an obvious, open, or formal manner. Such an
open relationship, such as a naval pact or treaty, could have acted as the cat-
alyst to cause the expansionist powers (especially Japan) to use their naval
forces in a pre-emptive fashion. Three nations were available in the interwar
for the RN to forge a professional alliance with. One of them, the Soviet
Union posited multiple political and strategic problems for any possible
Anglo-Soviet naval understanding. Apart from a political aversion within
some parts of the British strategic, foreign policy-making elite to forming
such an alliance, the reality of geopolitics also threw up hurdles to any
Anglo-Soviet naval agreement. While an Anglo-Soviet naval partnership
would have made it possible to exert pressure not only on the resurgent
German naval threat but also on the more distant Japanese, the price for
such an alignment was too great a political toll to pay. Such political limita-
tions did not prevent the RN from helping the Soviet Navy in the late 1930s
from improving its operational capability and infrastructure. Plans for
various ship types, guns and mountings, administrative processes, engines,
as well as actual copies of some of the material were all aspects of RN
support. The main strategic consideration for such help was the Admiralty’s
belief that a stronger Soviet navy would keep Germany occupied in the
Baltic and thus limit the resources available to the Kriegsmarine to attempt
to sever the imperial life-lines of empire to the British Isles. Equally, a resur-
gent Soviet navy in the Pacific would likewise provide a counterweight to the
Imperial Japanese Navy’s ideas regarding expansion.30 However, the Soviet
equation in the RN’s appreciation of world events was uncertain to say the
least. Secure relations were much more likely to be found through an
association with the French fleet and the USN.
The French Fleet was seen by the RN as a very valuable necessity for safe-
guarding that jugular of empire: the Mediterranean. In 1935, during the
preparation for the London Naval Conference of that year, the Admiralty,
along with the FO clarified the British position towards French naval power.

It is fully realized that it is our policy to remain on good terms with

France, but the Naval Staff emphasise that the French naval strength
provides, and will provide, the measure for the strength of the
strongest European naval Power and that the present position of
France may be assumed by a Power whose interests are opposed to
ours. There are reasons why a long naval agreement is highly desirable
and so our foreign policy must envisage, from the point of view of
naval security, our relationships for a long time ahead . . . . If we are to
accept definitely that it is an impossible financial task to build up a suf-
ficient naval strength to face the strongest European Power when we
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 141
are already engaged with Japan, that is a “Two-Power Standard”, we
must also accept the fact that the Admiralty cannot guarantee thee
security of our vital sea communications in Home Waters against attack
by sea. It seems that we must either trust to a naval combination with
some other Power to give us security at sea against such aggression, or
we must keep the balance of our forces remaining in Europe suffi-
ciently strong to prove an effective deterrent to any interference,
namely, a “One-Power Standard . . .”31

The RN’s concerns about whether or not Italy was a serious threat astride
one of the most important sea lanes of communication for the provision
of imperial security were highlighted during the Spanish Civil War and
the years 1936–1937 in particular. By 1938, with Japan at war with China
and German actions threatening to plunge Europe into war again, the RN
was compelled to admit that if the Admiralty were going to have the forces
available to send to the Far East to provide “durable security” for the
entire British Empire, The French Marine would have to provide the
majority of heavy fleet units in the Mediterranean.32 The RN would
provide light units, basing facilities and intelligence-sharing to the French,
but the Mediterranean element of the British Empire would have to be
protected by French maritime power in any three-front war. As Sir Ernle
Chatfield, First Sea Lord in 1938, explained to British politicians,

If we were faced with such a war [against Germany, Italy, and Japan],
it would be better to lose the eastern Empire by fighting than by
default. In the first case, it would be an honourable defeat; in the
second case, it would be a disgrace.33

Chatfield’s willingness to rely on The French Marine to protect British

imperial interests was not the only naval alliance that the RN hoped to
work to good benefit in the event of a global war. By 1937, and with the
growth of Japanese expansion and aggression in China, the RN looked
more and more towards the USN to help with the deterrence, and, if it
came to war, in the defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN).
Throughout the period from 1933–1939, the RN became more and
more indirectly reliant on the growing American maritime power. This
reliance was not simply a need for ships and naval forces to be signed by
treaty or pact to act in the defence of British imperial interests in the Far
East. Instead, fearful of provoking the IJN into an even more hostile posi-
tion with regard to western powers maintaining substantial naval forces in
the Far East, the RN increased its informal ties to the USN. By creating
these informal ties, through shared intelligence, codes, technology, plans,
ship designs, and political information, the RN used its perceived close
relationship with the USN to attempt to deter the Japanese from using
naval power to change the balance of power in the Far East.34 As tensions
142 G. Kennedy
in the Far East grew throughout 1938 and 1939, the RN became even more
anxious to ensure American naval support if Japan attacked British inter-
ests in the region. While Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa
were asked to prepare their naval forces for a higher level of operation with
the RN, in order to protect the Indian Ocean- and Pacific-sea lines of com-
munication, it was American naval power that was seen as being more
important for any RN success, especially in offensive operations, if British
forces were forced to meet the IJN while the RN was involved in operations
in Europe.35 Plans for allowing the American Far Eastern Fleet to use Sin-
gapore in time of war, as well as requests for American naval units to
operate openly from the British base in time of peace (acting as a signal to
the Japanese of the closeness of the Anglo-American naval relationship),
were all part of the RN’s attempts to bolster its ability to safeguard Britain’s
Far Eastern position.36 By March 1939, the American Chief of Naval Opera-
tions (CNO) was reported to the Admiralty as declaring:

he [CNO] does not consider it likely that the United States would be
at war with Japan without the United Kingdom being equally at war
with the Japanese, this perhaps explains why the Navy Department do
not seem particularly nervous about fortifying Guam.37

Following the outbreak of the general war in Europe, in September

1939, and the resulting drain on RN ships, particularly with regard to light
vessels such as cruisers and destroyers, the USN served a vital role in
helping set up an informal system of using its own light forces in the Far
East to provide some of the patrols, in an informal manner, that now-
absent RN vessels would have done. With the fall of France in June 1940
and the loss of The French Marine for any further operations, the USN
continued to grow in importance for Britain’s Far Eastern imperial
defence. Efforts to create an open and formal naval alliance, the American,
British, Dutch, Australia (ABDA) negotiations, met with success by early
1941, with USN forces being the key element in the operational capabilities
of the group. As well, in an attempt to re-create the success of the blockade
of the First World War, initially in European waters with operations aimed
at Germany and Italy and later, in early 1941, against Japan, the USN was
an integral part of the setting up and maintenance of the success of the
naval blockade constituted to protect the British Empire.38
The initial stages of the Second World War witnessed the RN performing
its traditional role of guardian of the global sea lines of communication that
poured material, manpower, and fiscal strength into the British Empire’s
war effort. Canadian warships joined with Atlantic units of the RN, while
Australian, New Zealand, South African and Indian crews and vessels
patrolled the Mediterranean, Indian, and Pacific oceans in order to ensure
the safe passage of vital war stocks.39 And while the Empire brought all its
naval might to bear, the course of the war in Europe proved to be all that
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 143
the RN and its associates could do. Increasingly, the protection of the Far
Eastern elements of the empire fell to the USN, which was willing to fill the
role of deterrent to any Japanese plans to exploit the RN’s weakened state
for its own advantage. However, on 7 December 1941, even that deterrent
failed. Japan, understanding the strategic maritime linkage between the
United States and British Empire, meant that it would have to defeat the
USN as well as the RN if it was to pick the low-hanging fruit of the British
Empire of the Far East for itself and attacked the American fleet in Pearl
Harbor. From that moment on, and after the destruction of Force Z off Sin-
gapore, the RN was the junior partner in naval operations in the Pacific. If it
was to protect British imperial interests in that region, its actions would have
to be as much diplomatic as they were military, and they would have to be
aimed as much at its naval partner, the USN, as they were against the IJN.
By 1943, it was very clear to the Admiralty that American naval power
was the dominant force in the war in the Pacific. That power gave great
credence that the United States would play the determining role in both
the creation and implementation of the post-war system of defence in the
Far East. Therefore, after naval supremacy was assured in the European
theatre of operations, the RN turned its attentions to the Pacific “doing its
share”. The Admiralty recognized that if the USN was seen to have been
the only substantial force to have waged war against Japan, Britain would
be placed in a far weaker position in the post-war negotiations concerning
how that region would be organized and run. In particular, the retention
of Singapore, continued good relations with Australia and New Zealand,
the re-establishment of Britain’s financial dominance in Hong Kong, as
well as the forging of a new set of relations with a more powerful China,
all meant that the British war effort had to make an impact in the Pacific.
And the best tool for that job was the RN. In Washington, the RN’s repre-
sentatives to the various joint planning committees pushed American
naval and political leaders into allowing the RN to take on a greater role
in the naval operations being conducted in the Pacific. Against some
strong opposition, this condition was achieved. Once the political battles
had been won, it was up to the operational commanders of the British
Pacific Fleet (BPF) to ensure that the RN performed well and that the
entire world, especially the Americans, would know about it. The perform-
ance of the BPF during the last two years of the war in the Pacific achieved
its objective. Despite inferior equipment, especially in carrier aviation, few
vessels, a lack of basing, overstretched supply lines, and a lack of an under-
way replenishment system that would allow it to maintain the operational
tempo of the USN, the RN did what it was asked to do to the best of its
ability. Its close professional ties and sterling performance won Britain a
major role in the re-organization of the region in the post-war period
thereby protecting Britain’s imperial interests in the Far East.40
The end of the Second World War, the second global naval war fought
by the RN in thirty-one years, saw an operationally effective, modern,
144 G. Kennedy
powerful force in place by 1945. Carrier aviation and submarines were two
areas of weakness however, a situation that would have some impact on
the RN’s post–Cold War operational capabilities but little on operations
designed for Imperial Defence in the post-war world. More important for
the RN and its imperial defence role were three non-naval factors: the
existence of the atomic bomb; financial restrictions on a war-ravaged
Britain, and a greater sense of nationalism extant throughout the Empire
due to the imperial war effort.41 The advent of the atomic bomb created a
challenge to the RN as being the only British service that could achieve
strategic effect. The Royal Air Force (RAF), now able to claim the ability
to destroy whole cities with one aircraft, once more challenged the RN as
to which service would have pride of place in any funding. That funding
was now extremely limited and the rationale for why the RN needed the
lion’s share would have to be carefully crafted. Finally, with the loss of
India and restricted basing right in the dominions, the RN’s ability to
sustain operations at a high tempo was impaired. If RN ships were to serve
around the world, the question asked was: why could not Australian, New
Zealand, or Canadian forces take on a greater presence, particularly in the
Pacific? The swift downsizing of the naval forces of those nations did not
allow, however, for any creation of a global, imperial navy.
That restricted circumstance was obvious during operations in the
Korean War. While major RN and dominion naval forces operated con-
stantly throughout the entire war, the strain on replenishment and supply
highlighted the limitations at the operational level now facing the RN.
With a long supply line from the Indian Ocean and few logistic vessels
available, the RN was still very reliant on support at all levels from the
USN.42 However, Korean War operations were not RN imperial roles in
the new post-war world. Those were UN- or NATO-styled operations all
linked to large-scale, conventional war scenarios.
The RN’s imperial defence role in the period from 1945 to 1956 was to
be found predominantly in small ship actions, patrols, humanitarian aid,
and the other assorted tasks that only naval power can perform so effect-
ively but which scholars chose to ignore due to their lack of battle and
derring-do. Scholars who wish to understand the operational reality of
that period and the influence of empire on those operations have some
work still to do. Thus, the literature on the imperial nature of RN opera-
tions from 1949 to 1956 is almost non-existent, apart from small studies
of RN operations during the Suez Crisis of 1956 itself.43 However, the
reality for the RN of this period was that it very much still thought in
terms of imperial defence. While, as some could rightly argue, the “impe-
rial angle” was one which allowed another budget line to be presented to
the Treasury, such a limited view of the place of imperial defence in the
post-war RN psyche would be mistaken. The RN as an institution still very
much believed its job was to defend the global interests of greater Britain,
no matter what condition that collective might be in. Admiralty policy,
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 145
planning, and strategic documents of all types from that era are littered
with this belief. That corporate identity, the RN’s view of imperial
defence in the mid-1950s, is best described at length by one of the RN’s
greatest First Sea Lords and a man who understood the RN’s place in the
imperial defence system exactly, Lord Chatfield:

In imperial defence it is not enough merely to defend the approaches

to these islands, or even the North Atlantic. Our defence must be
worldwide. It is often not understood that there are coastal areas in
which we cannot act against the enemy – their coastal areas – and that
they have similar difficulty in acting against ours. It is those areas which
the mine and the submarine render dangerous. Those areas of ours
must be defended by anti-mine and anti-submarine ships, minesweep-
ers and frigates; and they must be assisted by coastal aircraft. As time
goes on and weapons improve, these coastal areas are always increas-
ing. But outside them lie the great oceans, and in those oceans we have
to hold the seas and defend our merchant ships. It is impossible to do
that merely by being what is called “on the defensive”. There has been
a lot of talk lately on this subject, and people have been saying how sad
it is that the Navy is becoming a defensive service. But the Navy always
has been a defensive service to defend the seas against an enemy.
There is nothing offensive about it. That is why, I think, it is respected
by our countrymen, in particular – at least, it has been in the past. But
although it is becoming a commonplace to speak about defence, thee
defence of the seas is not like a military defence, where men sit in
trenches and wait for the enemy to attack them. It is an offensive
defensive. The Navy’s defensive is an offensive defensive. To pursue
the enemy all over the world until it finds him and destroys him – that
is the role of the Navy in maritime defence . . .44

Defence of global interests, of an empire, was not a dead concept in the

RN by 1956. Indeed, the idea of empire and the values of law, order,
justice, and righteousness were as strong as ever for the senior service and
their ethos of what they were defending. The British Empire was not just a
territorial or geographic possession for the RN. Seldom it was in the
history of that service. It was much an intellectual and philosophical belief
system as anything, and it was that image of values, of good, that the RN
still saw itself as a defender by 1956.

Notes
1 Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (Annapolis, MD, 1994); David
French, “The Royal Navy and the Defense of the British Empire, 1914–1918”,
in Keith Neilson and Elizabeth Jane Errington, eds, Navies and Global Defense:
Theories and Strategy (Westport, CT, 1995).
146 G. Kennedy
2 The best summary of all these post-war changes to the international system is
found in Zara Steiner, The Lights That Failed: European International History,
1919–1933 (Oxford, 2005); Patrick Finney, ed., Palgrave Advances in Inter-
national History (London, 2005); Stephen W. Roskill, Naval Policy Between the
Wars, Vol. 1 (London, 1968); Malcolm H. Murfett, “Look Back in Anger:
The Western Powers and the Washington Conference of 1921–1922”, in B.J.C.
McKercher, ed., Arms Limitation and Disarmament: Restraints on War, 1899–1939
(Westport, CT, 1992), pp. 83–104.
3 Christopher M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy Between the Wars
(London, 2000); Keith Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and the Collapse of the
Versailles Order, 1919–1939 (Cambridge, 2006); Keith Neilson and Greg
Kennedy, eds, Far Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald
Mackenzie Schurman (London, 1997).
4 C.I. Hamilton, “Expanding Naval Powers: Admiralty Private Secretaries and
Private Offices, 1800–1945”, War in History, 10 (2003), pp. 127–156; C.I. Hamil-
ton, “British Naval Policy, Policy-makers and Financial Control, 1860–1945”,
War in History, 12 (2005), pp. 371–395; G.C. Peden, The Treasury and British
Public Policy (Oxford, 2000); G.C. Peden, British Rearmament and the Treasury
(Edinburgh, 1979); Clavin, Patricia, The Failure of Economic Diplomacy: Britain,
Germany, France and the United States, 1931–36 (Basingstoke, 1996).
5 Greg Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the Far East, 1933–1939
(London, 2002); Joseph A. Maiolo, The Royal Navy and Nazi Germany,
1933–1939: A Study in Appeasement and the Origins of the Second World War
(London, 1998); Arthur J. Marder, Old Friends, New Enemies: The Royal Navy and
the Imperial Japanese Navy (Oxford, 1981); Antony Best, Britain, Japan and Pearl
Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936–1941 (London, 1995); Carolyn J.
Kitching, Britain and the Geneva Disarmament Conference (Basingstoke, 2003);
Tadashi Kuramatsu, “The Geneva Conference of 1927: The British Preparation
for the Conference, December 1926 to June 1927”, Journal of Strategic Studies,
19 (1996), pp. 104–121; P. Haggie, Britannia at Bay: The Defence of the British
Empire Against Japan, 1931–1941 (Oxford, 1981).
6 Richard Fanning, “The Coolidge Conference of 1927: Disarmament in Disarry”
in McKercher, Arms Limitation. pp. 64–79; Christopher Hall, Britain, America
and Arms Control, 1921–1937 (London, 1987); Gaines Post Jr, “Mad Dogs and
Englishmen: British Rearmament, Deterrence and Appeasement, 1934–35”,
Armed Forces and Society, 14 (1988), pp. 329–357; Carolyn J. Kitching, Britain and
the Problem of International Disarmament, 1919–1934 (London, 1999).
7 W.R. Louis, British Strategy in the Far East, 1919–1939 (Oxford, 1971): Ian
Cowman, Dominion and Decline: Anglo-American Naval Relations in the Pacific,
1937–1941 (Oxford, 1996); P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism:
Crisis and Deconstruction 1914–1990 (London, 1993); James Belich, Making
Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders, 2 vols (Auckland, 2001); John Gooch,
“The Politics of Strategy: Great Britain, Australia and the War Against Japan”,
War in History, 10 (2003) pp. 424–447; Lorna Lloyd, “ ‘Us and Them’: The
Changing Nature of Commonwealth Diplomacy, 1880–1973”, Commonwealth
and Comparative Politics, 39 (2001), pp. 9–30; Paul Twomey, “Small Power Secur-
ity Through Great Power Arms Control? – Australian Perceptions of Disarma-
ment, 1919–1930”, War and Society, 8 (1990), pp. 71–99; John D. Meehan,
“Steering Clear of Great Britain: Canada’s Debate over Collective Security in
the Far Eastern Crisis of 1937”, The International History Review, 25 (2003),
pp. 253–281.
8 John B. Hattendorf ed., Naval Strategy and Policy in the Mediterranean, Past, Present
and Future (London, 2000), pp. 51–147; Reynolds M. Salerno, Vital Crossroads:
Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War, 1935–1940 (Ithaca, NY, and
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 147
London, 2002); Robert Mallett, The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism
1935–1940 (London, 1998); G. Bruce Strang, “Imperial Dreams: The Mussolini-
Laval Accords of January 1935”, Historical Journal, 44 (2002), pp. 799–809; Brock
Millman, The Ill-Made Alliance: Anglo-Turkish Relations, 1934–1940 (Montreal,
1998); W.C. Mills, “The Nyon Conference: Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden,
and the Appeasement of Italy in 1937”, International History Review, 15 (1993),
pp. 1–22.
9 Jon Robb-Webb, “ ‘Light Two Lanterns, the British are Coming by Sea’: Royal
Navy Participation in the Pacific 1944–1945”, in Greg Kennedy, ed., British
Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 (London, 2005), pp. 128–153; Kevin
Smith, Conflict over Convoys: Anglo-American Logistics Diplomacy in the Second World
War (Cambridge, 1996).
10 Richard Moore, The Royal Navy and Nuclear Weapons (London, 2001); J. Lewis,
Changing Direction: British Military Planning for Postwar Strategic Defence, 1942–47
(London, 1988); Ian Speller, The Role of Amphibious Warfare in British Defence
Policy, 1945–56 (London, 2001).
11 Jon T. Sumida, “British Naval Procuement and Technological Change,
1919–39” in Philip P. O’Brien, ed., Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth
Century and Beyond (London, 2002), pp. 128–148; John Ferris, “The Last
Decade of British Maritime Spremacy, 1919–1929”, Keith Neilson and Greg
Kennedy, eds, Far Flung Lines, pp. 63–82.
12 John B. Hattendorf ed., Naval Strategy and Policy in the Mediterranean; Greg
Kennedy, “Depression and Security: Aspects Influencing the United States Navy
During the Hoover Administration”, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 6 (1995), pp.
342–372; Ferris, John Robert, Men, Money, and Diplomacy. The Evolution of British
Strategic Foreign Policy, 1919–1926 (Ithaca, NY, 1989); B.R. Sullivan, “A Fleet in
Being: The Rise and Fall of Italian Seapower, 1861–1943”, The International
History Review, 10 (1988), pp. 111–132; S. Morewood, “Anglo-Italian Rivalry in
the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1935–1940” in R. Boyce and E.M. Robert-
son, eds, Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War (London,
1989); Keith Neilson, “The Anglo-Japanese Alliance and British Strategic
Foreign Policy, 1902–1914” in O’Brien, Phillips Payson, ed., The Anglo-Japanese
Alliance, 1902–1922 (London, 2004), pp. 48–64.
13 Letter from Chatfield to Keyes, 28 October 1921 in Paul Halpern ed., The Keyes
Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet
Baron Keyes of Zeeburge, Vol. II, 1919–1938 (London, 1979) p. 57.
14 On the Washington Naval Conference 1921–1922 and various aspects of imper-
ial defence issues, see, Erik Goldstein and John Maurer, eds, “Special Issue on
the Washington Conference, 1921–1922: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and
the Road to Pearl Harbor”, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 4 (1993); John Ferris, “ ‘The
Greatest Power on Earth’: Great Britain in the 1920s”, The International History
Review, 13 (1991), pp. 726–750.
15 O’Brien, Phillips Payson, ed., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 (London,
2004).
16 J. Blatt, “The Parity that Meant Superiority: French Naval Policy Towards Italy
at the Washington Naval Conference, 1921–22, and Interwar French Foreign
Policy”, French Historical Studies, 12 (1981), pp. 54–72; B.R. Sullivan, “Italian
Naval Power and the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921–1922”,
Diplomacy and Statecraft, 4 (1993), pp. 87–101.
17 Phillips P. O’Brien, British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policies,
1900–1936 (Westport, 1998).
18 Letter from Chatfield to Keyes, 28 October 1921 in Paul Halpern, ed., The Keyes
Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet
Baron Keyes of Zeeburge, Vol. II, 1919–1938, p. 57.
148 G. Kennedy
19 Bryan M. Ranft, “Admiral David Earl Beatty (1919–1927)”, in Malcolm H.
Murfett, ed., The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten (Westport, 1995),
p. 138.
20 B.M. Ranft, ed., The Beatty Papers, vol. 2 (London, 1993), Doc. 192.
21 Ralph Harrington, “ ‘The Mighty Hood’: Navy, Empire, War at Sea and the
British National Imagination, 1920–60”, Journal of Contemporary History, 38
(2003), pp. 171–185; Christopher M. Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy
Between the Wars, pp. 162–180; John M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire
(Manchester, 1986); J.A. Mangan, ed., Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation
and British Imperialism (Manchester, 1990); Anthony Clayton, The British Empire
as a Superpower, 1919–39 (Athens, 1986), pp. 1–15; Richard English and
Michael Kenny, “Public Intellectuals and the Question of British Decline”,
British Journal of Politics and International Relations 3 (2001), pp. 259–283; Ann
Trotter, “The Dominions and Imperial Defence: Hankey’s Tour in 1934”,
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2 (1973), pp. 318–332. It is inter-
esting to note that some of the recent flavours of the week, in terms of the
study of British imperialism and self-perception, David Cannadine, Orientalism:
How the British saw their Empire (London, 2000); Bernard Porter, The Absent-
Minded Imperialists: What the British Really Thought About Empire (Oxford, 2004);
Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London, 2003) have
no significant references to this relationship at all, revealing just how much
help “serious” scholars of the British empire need to be corrected by those who
can rightfully mix military/naval aspects of the British imperial experience
into this wider framework and methodological approach.
22 Here, the model that students of the interwar intellectual mind of the RN
could follow with good effect is that set out by Donald M. Schurman, The Edu-
cation of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867–1914
(London, 1965); Andrew Lambert, The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox
Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession (London, 1998); Jon T.
Sumida, Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of
Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered (Baltimore, MD, 1997); Peter Hore, ed.,
Patrick Blackett: Sailor, Scientist, Socialist (London, 2003). Modern works that
attempt to grapple with the ideas of identity and culture in the British Imperial
world often make no attempt to involve the military/naval aspects: see Linda
Colley, “The difficulties of empire: present, past and future”, Historical Research,
79 (2006), pp. 367–382; John Gascoigne, “The Expanding Historiography of
British Imperialism”, Historical Journal, 49 (2006), pp. 577–592; Richard Price,
“One Big Thing: Britain, Its Empire, and Their Imperial Culture”, Journal of
British Studies, 45 (2006), pp. 602–627.
23 Joseph Moretz, The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period: An Oper-
ational Perspective (London, 2002); Andrew Field, Royal Navy Strategy in the Far
East, 1919–1939: Planning for War Against Japan (London, 2004), pp. 97–123; G.
Till, Air Power in the Royal Navy, 1914–1945 (London, 1979); B. Ranft, ed., Tech-
nical Change and British Naval Policy, 1860–1939 (London, 1977); Philip P.
O’Brien, ed., Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond
(London, 2002); W. Murray and A.R. Millett, eds, Military Innovation in the
Interwar Period (Cambridge, 1996); D. Edgerton, Science, Technology and British
Industrial Decline, 1870–1970 (Cambridge, 1996); Ian Speller, ed., The Royal
Navy and Maritime Power in the Twentieth Century (London, 2005).
24 Keith Neilson, “The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee, British Strategic
Foreign Policy, Neville Chamberlain and the Path to Appeasement”, English
Historical Review, 118 (2003), pp. 651–684; Steven Morewood, “Protecting
the Jugular Vein of Empire; The Suez Canal in British Defence Strategy,
1919–1941”, War in Society, 10 (1992), pp. 81–107; Donald F. Bittner, “Britannia’s
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 149
Sheathed Sword: The Royal Marines and Amphibious Warfare in the Interwar
Years – A Passive Response”, The Journal of Military History, 55 (1991). pp.
345–364.
25 Charles Bloch, “Great Britain, German Rearmament, and the Naval Agreement
of 1935”, in Hans W. Gatke, ed., European Diplomacy Between Two Wars, 1919–39
(Chicago, IL, 1972); D.C. Watt, “Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An
Interim Judgment”, Journal of Military History, 28 (1956), pp. 155–175; R.A.
Best, “The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An Aspect of Appease-
ment”, Naval War College Review, 34 (1981), pp. 68–85; Williamson Murray,
“The Role of Italy in British Strategy, 1938–1939”, Journal of the Royal United Ser-
vices Institute, 124 (1979), pp. 13–32, R.A. Salerno, “Multilateral Strategy and
Diplomacy: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the Mediterranean
Crisis, 1935–1936”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 17 (1994), pp. 42–60; E. Grove, “A
War Fleet Built for Peace: British Naval Rearmament in the 1930s and the
Dilemma of Deterrence Versus Defence”, Naval War College Review, 44 (1991),
pp. 3–16; Richard Harding, The Royal Navy, 1930–2000: Innovation and Defence
(London, 2005).
26 Patricia Clavin, The Failure of Economic Diplomacy, pp. 55–80; R.F. Holland,
Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, 1918–1939 (London, 1981); Ian M.
Drummond, British Economic Policy and the Empire, 1919–1939 (London, 1972);
Philip Williamson, National Crisis and National Government: British Politics, the
Economy and Empire, 1926–1932 (Cambridge, 1992); J. Henry Richardson,
British Economic Foreign Policy (London, 1936); Greg Kennedy, “ ‘Rat in Power’:
Neville Chamberlain and the Creation of British Foreign Policy, 1931–1939” in
Thomas Otte, ed., Makers of British Foreign Policy. From Pitt to Thatcher (Bas-
ingstoke, 2002), pp. 173–189; Michael Roi, Alternative to Appeasement: Sir Robert
Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy (Westport, 1997).
27 At this point, there is still no overarching, scholarly study of the investment
and upgrades to the global basing structure required by the RN in the inter-
war. Individual studies exist, most of them focused on Singapore. But none
look comprehensively at the political, fiscal, economic, technical, and military
aspects of the entire basing system. L. Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez: Britain’s
Mediterranean Crisis, 1936–39 (Cambridge, 1975); R. Pritchard, Far Eastern Influ-
ences upon British Strategy Towards the Great Powers, 1937–1939 (London, 1987);
Nicholas Tarling, Britain, Southeast Asia and the Onset of the Pacific War (Cam-
bridge, 1996); Antony Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia,
1914–1941 (London, 2002); Greg Kennedy, “Symbol of Imperial Defence: The
Role of Singapore in British and American Far Eastern Strategic Relations,
1933–1941”, in Brian P. Farrell and Sandy Hunter, eds, Sixty Years On: The Fall
of Singapore Revisited (Singapore, 2002); G.A.H. Gordon, British Seapower and
Procurement Between the Wars; A Reappraisal of Rearmament (London, 1988);
Nicholas Tracy, ed., The Collective Naval Defence of the Empire, 1900–1940
(London, 1997), pp. 425–604.
28 Christopher Bell, “ ‘Our Most Exposed Outpost’: Hong Kong and British Far
Eastern Strategy, 1921–1941”, Journal of Military History, 60 (1996), pp. 61–88;
Christopher Bell, “The ‘Singapore Strategy’ and the Deterrence of Japan:
Winston Churchill, the Admiralty and the Dispatch of Force Z”, English Histor-
ical Review, 116 (2001), pp. 604–634; Antony Best, “Constructing an Image:
British Intelligence and Whitehall’s Perception of Japan, 1931–1939”, Intelli-
gence and National Security, 11 (1996), pp. 345–364; Timothy Wilford, “Watching
the North Pacific: British and Commonwealth Intelligence before Pearl
Harbor”, Intelligence and National Security, 17 (2002), pp. 131–164.
29 Geoffrey Till, “Maritime Airpower in the Interwar Period: The Information
Dimension”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 27 (2004), pp. 298–323; Ong Chit
150 G. Kennedy
Chung, Operation Matador: Britain’s War Plans Against the Japanese, 1918–1941
(Singapore, 1997); Jon Sumida, “The Royal Navy and Technological Change,
1915–1945”, in Ronald Haycock and Keith Neilson, eds, Men, Machines, and
War (Waterloo, ON, 1988); Orest Babij, “The Advisory Committee on Trade
Questions in Time of War”, The Northern Mariner, 7 (1997) pp. 1–10; Orest
Babij, “The Royal Navy and Inter-war Plans for War Against Japan: The
Problem of Oil Supply”, in Greg Kennedy, ed., The Merchant Marine in Inter-
national Affairs, 1850–1950 (London, 2000), pp. 84–106; I.M. Gow, “The Royal
Navy and Japan, 1921–1941”, in Ian Gow and Yoichi Hirama, eds, The History of
Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1600–2000, vol. III: The Military Dimension (London,
2003), pp. 109–126.
30 Greg Kennedy, “Becoming Reliant on the Kindness of Strangers: Britain’s Stra-
tegic Foreign Policy, Naval Arms Limitation and the Soviet Factor, 1935–1937”,
War in History, 11 (2004), pp. 79–105; Keith Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia and
the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 166–212; David K. Varey, “The Politics of Naval
Aid: The Foreign Office, the Admiralty, and Anglo-Soviet Technical Coopera-
tion, 1936–37”, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 14 (2003), pp. 50–68.
31 Tracy, Collective Naval Defence of Empire, pp. 484–485; Sean Greenwood,
“ ‘Caligula’s Horse’ Revisted: Sir Thomas Inskip as Minister for the Co-ordina-
tion of Defence, 1936–1939”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 17 (1994), pp. 17–38.
32 Salerno, Vital Crossroads, pp. 101–102; Greg Kennedy, Intelligence and National
Security (2006).
33 Ibid., pp. 101–102; Paul G. Halpern, “French and Italian Naval Policy in the
Mediterranean, 1898–1945”, in Hattendorf, ed., Naval Strategy and Policy in the
Mediterranean, pp. 78–106.
34 Kennedy, Anglo-American Strategic Relations and the Far East, 1933–1939.
35 Ian Cowman, Dominion and Decline, pp. 25–36; Merrill Bartlett and Robert
William Love, Jr, “Anglo-American Naval Diplomacy and the British Pacific
Fleet, 1942–1945” American Neptune, 42 (1982), pp. 203–216; David A. Day,
“Promise and Performance: Britain’s Pacific Pledge, 1943–45”, War and Society,
4 (1986), pp. 71–93; Thomas Hall, “ ‘Mere Drops in the Ocean’: The Politics
and Planning of the Contribution of the British Commonwealth to the Final
Defeat of Japan, 1944–45”, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 16 (2005), pp. 93–115;
Christopher Bell, “Winston Churchill, Pacific Security, and the Limits of British
Power, 1921–41”, in John H. Mauer, ed., Churchill and Strategic Dilemmas before
the World Wars: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London and Portland, OR,
2003), pp. 51–87.
36 Greg Kennedy, “Symbol of Imperial Defence: The Role of Singapore in British
and American Far Eastern Strategic Relations, 1933–1941”, in Brian P. Farrell
and Sandy Hunter, eds, Sixty Years On; Greg Kennedy, “What Worth the Ameri-
cans? The British Strategic Foreign Policy-making Elite’s View of American
Maritime Power in the Far East, 1933–1941”, in Greg Kennedy, ed., British
Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 (London, 2005), pp. 90–118; Galen Roger
Perras, “ ‘Our Position in the Far East Would be Stronger Without this Unsatis-
factory Commitment’: Britain and the Reinforcement of Hong Kong, 1941”,
Canadian Journal of History, 30 (1995), pp. 232–259.
37 Greg Kennedy, “What Worth the Americans?”, p. 103.
38 W.N. Medlicott, History of the Second World War, The Economic Blockade, Vols. I &
II (London, 1959); CAB 96/4, War Cabinet, Far Eastern Committee, FE(41)
Paper 217, Feb. 1941.
39 David Stevens, ed., The Royal Australian Navy in World War II (Sydney, 1996);
G. Hermon Gill, “The Official History of Australia in the War of 1939–1945”,
Royal Australian Navy, 1939–1945 (Canberra, 1957, 1968) 2 Vols; T.R. Frame,
J.V.P. Goldrick, and P.D. Jones, Reflections on the Royal Australian Navy (Sydney,
 The Royal Navy and imperial defence 151
1991); Marc Milner, North Atlantic Run (Toronto, 1985); J. Boutilier, ed., The
RCN in Retrospect (Vancouver, 1982); W.A.B. Douglas, ed., The RCN in Transition
(Vancouver, 1988); Ian McGibbon, Blue-water Rationale, The Naval Defence of New
Zealand 1914–1942 (Wellington, 1991); W. David McIntyre, New Zealand Prepares
for War, Defence Policy, 1919–39 (Christchurch, 1988). Good works combining the
nationalistic naval histories with the core histories of the British Empire and RN
as central to those nation’s naval development are areas where graduate students
from the United Kingdom and abroad could still make significant contributions
to the understanding of the maritime nature of the pre-Commonwealth world.
40 Michael A. Simpson, A Life of Admiral of the Fleet, Andrew Cunningham: A Twen-
tieth Century Naval Leader (London, 2004), pp. 188–208; Michael A. Simpson,
The Somerville Papers (Aldershot, 1995); H.P. Willmott, Grave of a Dozen Schemes
(Annapolis, MD, 1996); Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, “ ‘One Last Crusade’: The
British Pacific Fleet and its Impact on the Anglo-American Alliance”, English
Historical Review, 12 (2005), pp. 429–466.
41 Ian Speller, The Role of Amphibious Warfare in British Defence Policy; Eric Grove,
Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy Since World War II (London, 1987);
N.A.M. Rodger, Naval Power in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 1996);
S. Dockrill, Britain’s Retreat from Suez: The Choice Between Europe and the World?
(Basingstoke, 2002); G. Till, Seapower at the Millennium (Stroud, 2001); Admi-
ralty Board Memo, June 1949, in John B. Hattendorf, R.J.B. Knight, A.W.H.
Pearsall, N.A.M. Rodger, and Geoffrey Till, eds, British Naval Documents,
1204–1960 (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 803–808.
42 Peter Nash, “The Royal Navy in Korea: Replenishment and Sustainability”, in
Kennedy, ed., British Naval Strategy East of Suez, pp. 154–178; Norman Friedman,
“Electronics and the Royal Navy”, in Harding, ed., The Royal Navy, pp. 246–286;
Malcolm Llewellyn Jones, “The Royal Navy and the Challenge of the Fast
Submarine, 1945–1954”, in Harding, ed., The Royal Navy, pp. 135–170; C. Hamp-
shire, The Royal Navy Since 1945 (London, 1990); Letter from Vice-Admiral W.W.
Davis, Vice-Chief of Naval Staff, to Admiral, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma,
Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, 12 February 1955, in Hattendorf, Knight,
Pearsall, Rodger, and Till, eds, British Naval Documents, pp. 814–816.
43 David Stevens, “The British Naval Role East of Suez: An Australian Perspect-
ive”, in Kennedy, ed., British Naval Strategy East of Suez, pp. 221–243; K. Hack,
Defence and Decolonisation in Southeast Asia: Britain, Malaya and Singapore,
1941–68 (Richmond, 2001); M.H. Murfett, In Jeopardy: The Royal Navy and
British Far Eastern Defence Policy, 1945–1951 (Kuala Lumpur, 1995); Geoffrey
Till, “Quarantine Operations: The Royal Navy and the Palestine Patrol”,
in Speller, ed., The Royal Navy and Maritime Power in the Twentieth Century,
pp. 129–147.
44 “A speech by Lord Chatfield, House of Lords, 2 December 1954” in Hattendorf,
Knight, Pearsall, Rodger, and Till, eds., British Naval Documents, pp. 814.
8 The RAF in imperial defence,
1919–1956
James S. Corum

In the last decades of the British Empire, from the end of the First World
War to the Suez crisis of 1956, airpower played an important role in impe-
rial defence policy and in every military operation in the empire. While air
operations in defence of the British imperial interests were always sec-
ondary to the mission of defending Britain and Western Europe, they
were still a major part of the RAF mission. Indeed, imperial defence
played a major role in the evolution of the RAF force structure and devel-
opment as the RAF forces overseas evolved over the 36 years from the end
of the First World War to the final gasp of the empire at Suez.
At the start of the period under study, the RAF was little more than a
force to support the senior services in the traditional mission of keeping
control in the Asian, African and Middle Eastern colonies. However, after
the Second World War, military roles were reversed and the RAF became
the priority service in grand strategic terms of protecting British interests,
and the army and navy were now cast into the supporting roles. By the
1950s, maintaining RAF bases in strategic locations around the periphery
of the Soviet Union became one of the primary justifications for maintain-
ing an imperial presence.
Of the many great changes brought about by the First World War, the
appearance of airpower as a major instrument of warfare was among the
most important. From fairly humble beginnings as reconnaissance forces,
air forces had quickly evolved into powerful military arms capable of pro-
viding accurate intelligence, close support to ground troops, interdiction
of enemy logistics and, finally, weapons with the capability of bombing
cities and industries far behind the fighting front. There was no doubt in
the minds of the British political and military leaders that airpower would
play an important role in any future military operations.
However, it did not follow that airpower’s important role in military
operations would assure the survival of the RAF as an independent service.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, both the army and the navy staffs,
with strong agreement in the cabinet, wanted to see the RAF disestab-
lished as an independent service, and its squadrons revert to the army and
navy, who would, to be sure, maintain strong air arms – but firmly under
 The RAF in imperial defence 153
the control of the army and navy staffs. Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard, who
had briefly served as the first chief of the air staff before taking command
of Britain’s heavy bomber force in 1918, again assumed command of the
RAF after the war and had to immediately fight to preserve the RAF as an
independent service. Trenchard believed that air power, especially in the
form of strategic bombers, would be the decisive weapon in future con-
flicts and that only a truly independent air force, commanded by airmen,
could mould modern airpower and exploit its potential as a decisive
weapon of warfare.
Trenchard believed that the disestablishment of the RAF would be a
strategic mistake of the first order and set out to find a means to justify an
independent air force. Trenchard was not an especially articulate man,
and even if he were, it would have been difficult to change the positions of
the army and navy staffs on the issue. Trenchard was, however, a gifted
bureaucratic infighter and knew that, given time, the RAF could justify its
independence to the government. Trenchard asked the army and navy
staffs for a year’s grace period to develop a peacetime organization plan
for the RAF with the final decision on that service’s independence to
come after the air staff could propose a detailed post-war plan.1 In 1919,
the air staff argued that the RAF would be Britain’s first line of defence in
the next war. As true as this statement was to be proven two decades later,
the post-First World War government was sceptical of such claims.2 Tren-
chard and the air staff had to come up with a mission for the RAF that
would appeal to the government. Keeping in mind the stringent financial
conditions in post-war Britain and the urgent requirement to demobilize
and still provide security for the empire at the lowest possible price, Tren-
chard set out to create an air force that would, at first, be more of a cadre
force than the decisive force he envisioned. Growth and development of
the RAF could come only after service independence could be assured.

The air control policy

One of the Britain’s most urgent post-war defence requirements was to
bring order to several expensive new colonial obligations in the form of
League of Nations mandates to govern Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq. At
the same time that the armed forces were ordered to assume a costly
burden of military occupation in regions rife with violent internal con-
flicts, the government had to demobilize the wartime forces and to econo-
mize by any means possible. This seemed an almost impossible task at the
time as the army and RAF were engaged in some large colonial conflicts
that flared up in the immediate post-war period. Afghanistan and the
Northwest Frontier of India had remained fairly quiet during the First
World War, thanks to a pro-British Emir of Afghanistan. But in 1919, the
Emir was assassinated, and the new Emir was pushed into conflict with
Britain by Afghani factions. As border clashes escalated into a conflict
154 J.S. Corum
known as the Third Afghan War, RAF fighters supported Indian army
ground troops fighting on the Northwest Frontier and Handley Page
bombers bombed Kabul to demonstrate Britain’s new ability to reach
deep into hostile territory and exact a quick punishment for border incur-
sions. This began a period of major operations by the Indian Army against
several border tribes, and the RAF squadrons in India saw constant
combat.3
The British Government also faced major conflicts on other fronts as
the new British mandate in Iraq exploded in 1920 in what was to be the
largest campaign faced by the interwar British army. The 60,200 British
troops and 2 RAF squadrons in Iraq were hard pressed to simply hold on,
so Britain was forced to dispatch an additional 19 battalions and 2 addi-
tional RAF squadrons to finally suppress the rebellion.4 During the fight-
ing in Iraq, the RAF performed well in conducting constant
reconnaissance and bombing missions in support of the army and was
able to supply surrounded garrisons by air and quickly evacuate
casualties.5 After a year of heavy fighting, the rebellion was suppressed at
the British cost of 1,040 soldiers killed and missing and 1,228 wounded,
with an estimated 8,450 dead Iraqi rebels.6 The financial cost of the enter-
prise shocked the British Government. In order to maintain control of a
minor colonial mandate with only moderate strategic value, British mili-
tary operations had cost the treasury £40 million, considerably more than
Britain had spent in supporting the Arab revolt against the Turks in the
First World War.
The RAF’s performance in India and Iraq provided considerable evid-
ence of the usefulness of air power in colonial operations. The effective-
ness of a few aircraft in putting down a minor rebellion in British
Somaliland in 1919–1920 provided Trenchard and the air staff with addi-
tional evidence to support an independent mission for the RAF.7 The
British Government had estimated that destroying the rebel ‘Mad
Mullah’s’ forces might require a large campaign costing over one million
pounds, but, in the final reckoning, the short campaign in which the RAF
had played the central role ended up costing only £77,000. This was an
argument for air power that played exceptionally well in the colonial and
war ministry and with the exchequer.8
Trenchard argued that the RAF could police several of Britain’s trou-
blesome new colonies through ‘air control’, namely using aircraft as the
primary means of employing force against bandits and rebellious tribes.
Strikes by aircraft would take the place of punitive expeditions by ground
forces that had traditionally been used to punish tribes for banditry and
small-scale rebellion.9 Simply put, punitive expeditions were a form of
corporate punishment usually meant to punish and deter troublesome
tribes by destroying their villages, crops and livestock and inflicting casual-
ties upon tribal warriors. The punitive expeditions and corporate punish-
ment of hostile tribes was standard practice not only in the British Empire
 The RAF in imperial defence 155
but in all the colonial empires. In Britain’s colonial wars, a punitive expe-
dition might vary from a platoon of the Camel Corps riding against one
village to months-long operations on the Northwest Frontier carried out
by thousands of soldiers.
Air control meant substituting aerial bombardment for the traditional
ground punitive expedition. Airplanes had the advantage of reaching the
object of the punitive expedition, i.e. the tribal headquarters or main
village, very quickly. Airplanes also possessed the capability to inflict
serious harm upon rebellious natives. Since disruption and destruction
was the goal of a punitive expedition, a small force of airplanes was pre-
ferred as it could inflict as much damage as a large, cumbersome and
expensive ground force expedition and do it far more cheaply. Indeed, in
the view of the colonial administrators, airpower was superior to ground
forces because it could inflict punishment quickly. An immediate and
sharp response to a hostile action gave the British a psychological advant-
age under typical conditions in which small numbers of colonial adminis-
trators and police were required to control large numbers of tribal
peoples that were often kept quiet by the threat of force.
With Iraq and the Northwest Frontier quieting down and the campaign
in Somaliland successfully completed, Air Marshal Trenchard met with
Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference on Middle
East Affairs in 1921 and formally proposed that the RAF take over the task
of directing military operations in Iraq and that the primary British garri-
son for Iraq should be RAF squadrons.10 Trenchard asserted that a few
RAF squadrons, supported by armoured car units and locally recruited
troops, could keep order at a fraction of the cost of a large army garrison.
The financial argument for air control was irresistible to Whitehall, so in
October 1922, RAF Air Marshal John Salmond took over military
command in Iraq. It was the first time that an airman had been placed in
control of all military operations in a country.11 The RAF’s garrison for Iraq
was initially eight squadrons of fighters and light bombers, such as multi-
purpose DH-9, supported by four RAF armoured car companies.12 These
forces were, in turn, supported by 15,000 Iraqi troops and police, 5,000 of
them under British command and being organized as an Iraqi Army. Iraqi
forces were paid for by the Iraqi state.13
Through the 1920s and 1930s in Iraq and small colonies such as Aden,
the RAF was able to quell minor tribal banditry by swiftly punishing the
culprits from the air.14 The colonial air control policy later gave rise to
some myths about the relative effectiveness of airpower that still persist.15
The first popular myth was the descriptions of colonial operations as
purely air operations, which was rarely the case. Aside from very small
police actions, such as bombing tribes in Aden to suppress cattle rustling,
RAF colonial operations are best described as modern joint operations in
which aircraft played a traditional supporting role to ground forces. In
suppressing the sizeable Kurdish rebellions in Northern Iraq in the 1920s
156 J.S. Corum
and 1930s or in fighting hostile tribes along India’s Northwest Frontier,
most RAF sorties consisted of reconnaissance, transport and medical evac-
uation missions for the army as well as close air support.
Another popular myth is that the RAF bombing campaigns were far
more humane than the traditional punitive expeditions by ground forces,
a view popularized by airpower advocates of the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed,
at times the RAF carefully applied minimum force and provided rebel
tribesmen with warnings and then carefully bombed the home of the
tribal chief as a warning that the force levels would escalate unless the
tribe and chief complied with British decrees.16 The later official reports
of the RAF and the writings of its supporters maintained that the RAF’s air
control methods were very humane, resulted in little loss of life and were
always carried out with full warning.17 However, in many cases, no warn-
ings were given and hostile tribes bombarded ruthlessly.18 Yet, at a time
when there was little media presence and little communication on the
frontiers of empire, British forces faced by hostile tribesmen could get
away with ignoring the rules. However, it is only fair to say that the RAF
employed airpower more humanely than other colonial powers, notably
Spain and Italy, who used aircraft to drop poison gas on tribal rebels. Even
in desperate situations, the RAF refrained from employing poison gas in
colonial warfare.19
The tactical effectiveness of air control tended to decline over time,
and this demonstrated some of the limits of airpower. The first time air
strikes were employed, they tended to have an impressive psychological
effect upon the population, as occurred in Somaliland in 1920. However,
as air control methods became common practice in many colonies, the
initial psychological effect soon wore off. Hostile tribes in Aden, on
India’s Northwest Frontier, and in Kurdistan learned to camouflage their
camps and dig air raid shelters for their villages when trouble broke out
with the British. Tribes in Kurdistan set up a primitive warning system with
observers and smoke signals to warn the most likely targets when British
aircraft approached.20 In the later campaigns against the Kurdish leader
Sheik Mahmud, the rebel capitol was heavily bombed for months as the
rebels gamely fought on. Nor were the Arabs fighting the British in Pales-
tine in the 1930s overawed by the RAF’s airpower capability. The two-year
revolt in Palestine was finally ended not by military force but through a
political deal and British compromise that limited Jewish immigration.
In the final analysis, the RAF’s programme of colonial air control can be
considered fairly effective. If aircraft could not do the job alone, they cer-
tainly acted as a tremendous force enhancement for military operations on
the frontiers of the empire. RAF squadrons were very effective in reducing
the numbers of ground troops required, and police and military opera-
tions supported by airpower were much more effective than in the pre-First
World War era. In campaigns in India or Iraq, one or two aircraft could
provide army and police forces the same level of reconnaissance support as
 The RAF in imperial defence 157
a cavalry battalion. A few aircraft could provide fire support equal to an
artillery battery, a major consideration for an army that tired to move
artillery through the rugged terrain of the Iraqi desert or the Northwest
Frontier. Moreover, aircraft could react to emergencies quickly. The heavy
firepower that the aircraft could bring to the battle was a psychological
shock to the enemy and a great morale boost for the British troops. The
RAF also proved its utility in numerous small-scale transport operations.
Modified DH-9 light bombers successfully evacuated the wounded during
the Somaliland campaign of 1920, and during a crisis in Afghanistan
during the winter of 1928–1929, RAF bombers based in India evacuated
586 people from Kabul.21
Airpower fully lived up to Trenchard’s promise to reduce the costs of
policing the empire. The post-World War conditions favoured the RAF.
When Trenchard proposed the air control policy, the RAF had a large
stockpile of rugged two-seater fighters and light bombers left over from
the World War. Aircraft such as the Bristol fighters and Dehaviland DH-9
light bombers were ideal for the observation and bombing missions that
were the mainstay of RAF operations. Obsolescent biplanes were cheap,
and required little support infrastructure and requirements for colonial
operations were basic. There was no enemy air threat, and ground fire was
rarely lethal in an era when the enemy had no anti-aircraft guns – and
rarely even machine guns. Aircraft considered too obsolete for home
defence or European operations were considered acceptable for colonial
air control, so aircraft such as the Bristol fighter that first flew in 1917 were
employed in the colonies into the late 1920s. Although the initial commit-
ment to imperial defence in 1920 represented a large share of the RAF’s
operational squadrons, the number of RAF units in the colonies remained
relatively static during the 1920s and 1930s as the government dramatically
expanded the RAF force at home after 1923. From then on, most aircraft
ordered for the RAF went to home commands and units at home had first
call on the latest models of aircraft while colonial forces soldiered on with
old aircraft considered too obsolete for European operations. When war
broke out in 1939, RAF units on India’s Northwest Frontier were equipped
with Wapiti biplanes – long considered unsuitable for home use. Through
the 1920s and 1930s, the RAF’s colonial operations represented a small
share of the RAF budget and required only a few thousand personnel.

The RAF in the context of imperial strategy

The interwar British governments and the RAF leadership can be faulted
for failing to provide an air force even minimally adequate to meet the
requirements to defend what were proclaimed to be some of the most stra-
tegic points in the empire. Indeed, as long as order was maintained within
the colonies, there was little thought given to the requirements for external
defence against conventional threats until much too late – a policy that had
158 J.S. Corum
disastrous consequences for the empire during the first half of the Second
World War.
Britain considered the Mediterranean and Middle East to be vital stra-
tegic areas in which Britain required colonies and military bases in order
to protect the vital sea route to India and the Far East. Loss of the great
naval base at Malta or the Suez Canal to an enemy power would be seen as
a catastrophic blow to British trade and imperial communications as
sailing time to India and the Far East would be increased by several weeks.
At the other end of the world, the naval base at Singapore, the largest
single defence project of the interwar period, was viewed as the strategic
keystone to defending Australia, New Zealand and Britain’s Asian colonies
from any Japanese advances.22 Considering how important Malta, Egypt
and Singapore were in British strategic thought and planning, it is
surprising that relatively little was done to provide adequate air cover for
these bases even after the threat from the Italian-German alliance and the
Japanese had become acute.
Hugh Trenchard, who served as Chief of the Air Staff until 1928, viewed
the defence of vital strategic points as an important mission for the RAF.
One of the RAF’s first major post-war deployments was to Egypt, where the
RAF sent seven squadrons in 1920. Egypt was seen as crucial to defending
the Mediterranean and Suez Canal as well as being a sensible base for an
RAF reserve force that could quickly deploy to any trouble spots in the
Middle East or Asia. Trenchard also argued for a major RAF role in the
defence of Singapore as the building programme got underway in the
1920s. After the First World War, Britain dropped its alliance with Japan
and increasingly viewed that nation as a major potential threat to British
colonies and British dominions. With Japan a likely future enemy, the 1921
Imperial Conference agreed that Singapore was the key point in the Pacific
and proposed spending £11 million to build a major naval base and to
fortify it against any fleet attack. In 1926, the navy and air staffs engaged in
a major dispute about the most effective means of protecting the fleet base,
with the Admiralty favouring 15″ guns and the air staff arguing that a force
of torpedo bombers would be cheaper and more effective.23 Eventually, a
compromise was reached and the naval base would be defended by a com-
bination of heavy guns and airplanes, and the RAF developed the Vilde-
beest torpedo bomber, which came on line in the early 1930s. Still, the air
component for the defence of Singapore and Malaya consisted of a mere
handful of obsolescent aircraft until the very eve of war in the Pacific.
In the early 1930s, as Hitler came to power in Germany and Japan’s mil-
itaristic and aggressive intentions became evident, Britain began to rearm.
Under every rearmament plan, the RAF played an increasing large role in
defence planning and won an ever-increasing share of the budget.
Spurred on by Germany’s creation of a new air force in 1935, aerial rear-
mament went into full swing with Britain’s 1935 RAF expansion scheme
that set a goal of a home air force of 1,736 front-line aircraft and an
 The RAF in imperial defence 159
increase of the RAF’s overseas forces to 37 squadrons.24 However, the
British aircraft industry could not increase production fast enough to
come even close to meeting the RAF’s rearmament plans. The new air-
craft produced after 1935 went almost exclusively to the Bomber
Command and Fighter Command at home, with Singapore, the Middle
East and the Mediterranean getting only a few obsolete aircraft – but none
of the newer models. Air defence of the strategic points in the empire was
not forgotten, but it was shifted to a relatively low priority. At the outbreak
of the war with Italy in 1940 and with Japan in 1941, the RAF was unable
to provide an adequate defence of Egypt or Singapore. The vital base at
Malta did not even receive a token defence. Although the Committee of
Imperial Defence had studied the defence of Malta in the 1930s and
decided that Malta required 172 anti-aircraft guns, 24 searchlights and
four fighter squadrons for an adequate defence against the Italian air
force based on nearby Sicily, in June 1940, the island had a mere 42 anti-
aircraft guns and no fighter squadrons for its defence.25
The development of a serious air defence system for Singapore and
Malaya only got underway in 1940–1941 and came too little and too late to
effectively confront the Japanese onslaught. When the Pacific War began
on 7 December 1941, RAF and Commonwealth air forces had only 181
operational aircraft available to meet a much larger Japanese force – and
almost all the RAF aircraft were older machines. Some aircraft in Malaya,
such as the hapless American Brewster Buffalo fighter, were deemed too
inferior to serve in Europe but were thought sufficient to take on the
Japanese. Indeed, a major part of the RAF’s Singapore’s defence force con-
sisted of 36 venerable biplane Vildebeest torpedo bombers, now a decade
old. The superb Japanese Zero fighters quickly swept the RAF’s motley col-
lection of aircraft out of the sky as Japanese ground forces overran Malaya
and Singapore in a few weeks in Britain’s single greatest imperial defeat.26
One of the great strategic opportunities that Britain failed to exploit
was the chance to develop a modern air transport system to link the
empire together. Geographically, the British colonies and dominions were
well situated to make long-distance air routes an attractive means to trans-
port people rapidly from Britain to far-flung outposts. The RAF pioneered
some air routes right after the First World War, and air service from Cairo
to Baghdad was opened in 1921. However, the British Government was
reluctant to subsidize civilian air transport to the degree necessary to
develop large and efficient cargo and passenger aircraft. Germany and the
US provided generous subsidies to develop civilian air transport and
quickly moved ahead of Britain in every aspect of civil aviation. By the
early 1930s, the Americans were building the DC-2 and DC-3 transports,
and Germany was manufacturing the Junkers Ju 52. All of these transport
craft were capable of carrying three tons of passengers or freight safely
over long distances. Britain was unable to produce any aircraft to compare
with the American and German transports.
160 J.S. Corum
German and American aviation subsidies also paid for the development
of long-distance and night-flying technology – another capability that
British civil aviation lacked. From the late 1920s on, the German and
American passenger planes routinely flew at night with the aid of radio
navigation systems. At the same time, British civil aircraft were limited to
daytime flights. These were capabilities that translated directly into mili-
tary capabilities. By the late 1930s, the German and American air forces
had adapted the civil aviation navigation technology for military use, and
the German and American bombers were able to fly fairly effectively over
long distances, in bad weather or at night. In contrast, the RAF Bomber
Command remained mostly a daytime and fair weather force. In 1937,
RAF aircraft and stations lacked direction-finding equipment and only
half of the RAF Bomber Command stations had meteorological sections,
and none had a ‘blind landing’ (Lorenz-type) system – all technologies
that had been used in Germany and the US since the late 1920s.27
Because of sustained and generous government support for civil air
transport through the 1920s and 1930s, the US Army Air Corps and the
German Luftwaffe were able to develop specialized and highly trained mil-
itary transport forces by the late 1930s – forces that proved invaluable for
supporting military operations in the Second World War. In contrast, the
RAF went to war in 1939 without a specialized transport force and was
forced to improvise a military air transport system using obsolete bombers.
Luckily, the RAF was able to acquire large numbers of modern specialized
transport aircraft from the US during the Second World War. However,
during the first half of the war, the RAF possessed little in the way of air
transport means or capability.

The Commonwealth and airpower 1919–1939

Yet another missed opportunity in the interwar period was the failure to
develop an effective system of military and civil aviation cooperation
among the Commonwealth nations. While the Commonwealth was an
important political entity, in terms of making strategy or enhancing mili-
tary cooperation, it was little more than a very loose consultation body.
This was difficult enough for British strategists to deal with during the
1920s when there were no urgent threats to Britain or the dominions.
However, as major threats arose in the 1930s, the failure of the Common-
wealth nations to cooperate and coordinate airpower strategy, aircraft pro-
duction and aircrew training put the survival of the British Empire at
grave risk once war began.
The First World War enhanced the status and role of the imperial
dominions and fundamentally changed the nature of the British Empire.
The independent dominions of Canada, Australia, South Africa and New
Zealand created large and effective armies and played an important role
 The RAF in imperial defence 161
in every fighting front. The World War also advanced the industrialization
of the independent dominions and created the basis for a modern mili-
tary-industrial infrastructure that included establishing local military and
civil aviation industries. Conscious of the crucial role they had played in
winning the final victory, the governments of the dominion states insisted
on renegotiating their position within the framework of imperial defence
and strategy. No longer would imperial defence strategy be crafted in
London with dominion states informed after the fact. After 1918, the
Commonwealth states demanded the right to sit at the table as full part-
ners rather than the loyal and cooperative subordinates they had been
before 1914.28
A series of imperial defence and policy conferences in the 1920s set the
tone for the Commonwealth cooperation with the British military for the
defence of the empire. Most of the imperial discussions concerned
ground and naval forces, but the role of airpower was an important
consideration as well and would become increasingly important through
the 1920s and 1930s. British Government proposals for a single imperial
navy and air force set forth in the 1921 and 1923 imperial conferences
were non-starters as far as the Commonwealth nations were concerned.
Every Commonwealth state insisted that it would maintain independent
services whose equipment would be compatible with the British as much
as possible. Key issues, however, were left open. The role of the Common-
wealth nations in the Pacific was left unclear, as were the military
command arrangements. Most importantly, the degree of support that
Australia and New Zealand might provide to the Singapore naval base was
left open. During the 1920s, Britain and the Commonwealth often worked
at cross-purposes in terms of imperial defence strategy. Britain saw Com-
monwealth defence planning in terms of getting Commonwealth nations
to pay more for their defence, and Commonwealth nations saw the Singa-
pore strategy and traditional reliance upon the RN as a means to pay less.
In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the independent
dominions also had their demobilization and economic issues to deal with
and were reluctant to be associated with any military schemes that might
involve them in any new imperial adventures or commitments. Britain’s
attempt to bring the Commonwealth nations into supporting Britain’s
scheme to intervene in Turkey in 1922 during the Charnak crisis sowed a
degree of mistrust between the Commonwealth governments and the British
Government that remained into the 1930s.
During the First World War, all the dominions established air forces and
basic infrastructures for flight training, aircraft maintenance and even air-
craft construction. Indeed, a large proportion of the Royal Flying Corps
came from the dominions. Australia, for example, fielded its own squadrons
for service with the Royal Flying Corps in the Mideast and France. After the
war, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa established small air
forces. With the RN serving as the first line of imperial defence, building air
162 J.S. Corum
forces was a low priority, and for most of the interwar period, the dominion
air forces were mere training cadres and not in any position to support the
RAF in imperial operations.29 The RAF did, however, establish a programme
to bring dominion air force officers with short-service commissions into the
RAF. After flight training and experience with RAF units, they would return
to their own air forces. It was a simple and inexpensive means to keep the
dominion air forces closely linked to the RAF.
By the mid-1930s, with Hitler swiftly rearming Germany and moving
towards an alliance with Italy, and a rapidly modernizing Japan becoming
openly aggressive, the threats to British and Commonwealth security
became acute. While Britain initiated a major aerial rearmament pro-
gramme, the Commonwealth nations were generally reluctant to rearm
and build up their air forces. In 1936, Air Commodore Arthur Tedder, the
then chief of training for the RAF, authored a memo that proposed a
scheme to set up an aircrew training programme for Commonwealth air
force personnel in Canada and other Commonwealth nations. This sensi-
ble proposal did not find favour with Canadian Prime Minister King, who
was reluctant to involve Canada in any imperial defence schemes.
Tedder’s proposal, which later developed into the incredibly successful
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of the Second World War, was
finally approved by the Commonwealth nations in April 1939, with train-
ing to begin in September 1939.30
Of all the Commonwealth nations, only Australia made any serious
attempt to build up its air force. The rise of an aggressive and militant
Japan forced Australia to begin to rearm and to initiate closer defence
cooperation with Britain. Japan’s withdrawal in 1934 from the limits of the
Washington Naval Agreements, the rapid growth of the Japanese armed
forces and the brutal invasion of China in 1937 made the Japanese threat
very clear to the Pacific Ocean powers. In 1937, the British Government
promised that a powerful RN fleet would be dispatched to Singapore
immediately if the Japanese threatened to move south.31 However sincere
the British pledge to defend the Pacific dominions, the Australians under-
stood that European and home defence would be Britain’s top priority
and British resources might not be adequate to deal with simultaneous
conflicts in Europe and the Pacific. With the British aircraft industry in
the throes of rearmament, the Australians accurately predicted that
Britain would not be able to supply adequate numbers of aircraft for a
rapidly growing Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). To provide for their
own requirements, the Australians created their own aircraft manufactur-
ing company, the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) in 1936.
Furthermore, the CAC decided that its first production airplane would
not be British but rather a version of the North American NA-33 trainer.32
Turning to the Americans for aircraft was another indication of Aus-
tralia’s lack of confidence that Britain could uphold her vast imperial
defence commitments. The Australian assessment was correct. From 1936
 The RAF in imperial defence 163
to 1941, British industry was unable to manufacture adequate numbers of
modern aircraft for its own forces, and unless the dominions went to
America for aircraft or produced their own, they would be stuck with
whatever obsolete aircraft that the RAF could spare them. By 1938, the
Australians saw the situation as acute as the RAAF’s primary fighters were
then obsolete open-cockpit Bristol Bulldog and Hawker Demon biplanes.
Upset at the slow pace of delivery of British aircraft, the Australians turned
to the Americans with an order for 50 Lockheed Hudsons to serve as
modern reconnaissance-bomber planes.33 As the crisis in the Pacific wors-
ened, Australia turned increasingly to an informal alliance with America
in Pacific defence planning and ordered increasing numbers of aircraft
from the US. In 1941, Australia began receiving aircraft under the Amer-
ican Lend-Lease programme as its air force expanded. Although Australia,
like all the Western powers, was unprepared to meet the Japanese
onslaught in 1941 and suffered initial sharp reverses, the build up of the
RAAF had progressed to the point that it recovered quickly. Through
1942 and 1943, the RAAF, rapidly growing in size and effectiveness, played
an important role in stopping the Japanese and turning the tide in New
Guinea and the South Pacific theatres. Credit for this accomplishment lies
with the foundations for aerial rearmament laid down in the 1930s.
Another notably missed opportunity to develop imperial airpower was
the failure to develop an Indian air force. In 1932, the Government of
India established an air force that consisted of a flight of army coopera-
tion biplanes. However, the Indian Government had little interest in
developing an air force, and by 1939, the Indian Air Force consisted of a
single squadron of obsolete Wapiti biplanes with a manning of 16 officers
and 662 men. Two years later, at the outbreak of the Pacific War, the
Indian Air Force was able to contribute only a small detachment of obso-
lete army cooperation aircraft to participate in the Allied debacle in
Burma. The Government of India had ample financial resources to have
created a modern and balanced air force, at least capable of defending
Indian borders and vital bases. The Indian Government’s lack of interest
in airpower meant that India was virtually defenceless in the air against
Japanese attacks in 1942.
From small beginnings, the imperial and Commonwealth contribution
to the Allied air effort in the Second World War was substantial. During the
war, the Commonwealth nations developed large and capable air forces
under their own command and also contributed tens of thousands of
aircrew to man the RAF’s squadrons. The Commonwealth Air Training
Plan was one of the most successful of the wartime programmes, and it
played a decisive role in winning air superiority for the Allies. Canada and
Australia also became important aircraft manufacturing centres. However,
the first half of the war was a bleak period for the RAF and Commonwealth
air forces because of the very weak efforts to build a Commonwealth and
imperial foundation for airpower in the 1920s and 1930s.
164 J.S. Corum
The RAF and the empire after the Second World War
The outlook for Britain and the empire in the period right after the
Second World War was, in many respects, more difficult than the post-
First World War era. For one thing, the exertions of the Second World
War had strained Britain’s financial and economic resources to the
maximum, and the need to demobilize the wartime armed forces and cut
imperial defence expenditures was urgent. At the same time, all of the
colonial powers faced a powerful wave of nationalism. Nationalist groups
in Europe’s Asian and Middle Eastern colonies were considerably better
organized than before the Second World War. In a devastated Western
Europe, Britain and the US faced an aggressive and well-armed Soviet
Union that was eager to exploit every opportunity to expand communist
influence. In Greece, where thousands of British troops tried to maintain
order and support the Greek Government, the Cold War turned hot as a
powerful communist insurgency was supported by the Soviets through
Yugoslavia.
The new strategic realities required a complete reassessment of
Britain’s empire and Britain’s role as a world power. In military and stra-
tegic terms, Britain had been eclipsed by the US and was now in the posi-
tion of a junior partner, dependent on American loans and aid to adjust
to the post-war economy. The positive side was that the US no longer
remained aloof from European affairs and was willing to assume a major
role in defending Western Europe and to work with Britain to contain
communism in Greece. With Germany and Japan defeated and facing
only a small Soviet navy, there was now little reason to maintain a large
RN. The strategic relationship with the dominions had also changed. By
1945, Canada and Australia had become significant military powers in
their own right, and the new realities began to change the nature of impe-
rial relationships before the war had ended. During the Second World
War, the US, whose navy was now vastly larger than the RN, assumed
responsibility for the defence of Australia and New Zealand, and this rela-
tionship was formalized by agreements after the war.
The development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War
was an issue that could not be ignored in post-war strategic planning. With
or without American help, Britain decided that it would maintain its great
power status by developing its own nuclear weapons. As the RAF had
created a superb strategic bombing force during the war, it was the logical
force to deliver nuclear weapons. Because it was assumed that the next war
might come quickly and with little warning, the only force that could
respond with appropriate speed was the RAF. So the RAF, the Cinderella
service before the war, eclipsed the RN as Britain’s first line of defence and
became the primary military means of containing the Soviet Union. Devel-
oping new jet aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons became a top
priority for defence research and development after the war. Despite the
 The RAF in imperial defence 165
protests of the RN, the battle fleet that had been the pride of the armed
forces was now replaced by the RAF’s strategic bomber force in the budget
planning for Britain’s defence requirements.
In financial terms, the empire had become, for the most part, an
enormous liability after 1945. The military cost of British home defence
and imperial commitments in a disorderly post-war world were enormous.
In 1946–1947, the British armed forces budget was £1,091 million and
took up 15 per cent of Britain’s GNP. The chancellor called for drastic
cuts in the defence budget with a goal of spending £750 million in
1947–1948.34 The cost of maintaining large imperial garrisons was well
beyond Britain’s capability, and in early 1946, the government took the
painful but necessary decision to grant independence to India, Ceylon
and Burma no later than 1948.
The first post-war imperial problem for Britain’s armed forces was to re-
establish British and Western rule in colonies that had been overrun and
occupied by the Japanese in 1941–1942. Since Southeast Asia was primarily a
British theatre of war, large British and Commonwealth forces were engaged
in reoccupation of Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina.
The reoccupation of Malaya had been carefully planned and went ahead
smoothly. In September 1945, the RAF occupied airfields in Indochina
without incident. However, the British commitment to this theatre was short-
lived as the French were able to bring in forces within a few weeks. Much
more problematic was the reoccupation of the Dutch East Indies. As the
Netherlands would be unable to stand up sufficient military forces to take
control of their colony until late 1946, the British had to assume respons-
ibility for securing and administering the vast Dutch Asian Empire for more
than a year. The situation was complicated by the Indonesian nationalists
declaring independence as the Japanese surrendered. This meant that the
British army and RAF had to intervene in a politically explosive situation. In
Sumatra, where the nationalists were not well organized, the reoccupation
proceeded without incident. But in Java, where the nationalists had their
primary power base, large-scale fighting broke out between the British forces
and Indonesians in October–November 1945. The RAF deployed hundreds
of aircraft to Indonesia as RAF Thunderbolts, Mosquitoes and Beaufighters
provided close air support to British ground troops and bombed the rebel
centres of power. The heaviest combat took place in the city of Surabaya,
and RAF bombing inflicted heavy casualties upon the Indonesians as well as
heavy damage to the city.35 The RAF support to the Dutch empire in Asia, an
ultimately futile enterprise, was one of the several significant burdens the
RAF had to bear immediately after the Second World War.

The RAF in post-war imperial strategy

The post-war COS were firmly committed to maintaining Britain’s posi-
tion as a global world power, and to them, this implied keeping the
166 J.S. Corum
empire intact. The British defence chiefs met the new post-war challenges
with a mixture of hard-headed realism, such as understanding the need to
contain the Soviet expansionism, with an often emotional response, such
as their preference to maintain the pre-war colonial system despite the
economic costs. Britain’s service chiefs all had extensive experience in
imperial operations and found it hard to conceive of a declining empire.
For example, the RAF’s post-war chief, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder
(Chief of the Air Staff 1946–1950) had served as a squadron commander
in the Middle East in 1922–1923 and as an air officer commanding Far
East 1936–1938. Air Chief Marshal John Slessor (Chief of the Air Staff
1950–1953) had served as a flight commander in India in 1921–1923 and
as a wing commander on the North West Frontier 1936–1937. While the
Indian subcontinent was abandoned with great reluctance, the RAF and
other service chiefs continued to argue strongly for keeping a strong
imperial presence in the Middle East even though the primary strategic
reason for maintaining Middle Eastern colonies – protecting communica-
tions with India – was no longer relevant after India’s independence.
The rapidly changing post-war political conditions forced the British
service chiefs and the air staffs to jump from one basing strategy to another.
Immediately after the war, maintaining air bases in Egypt was considered to
be a strategic necessity. However, as negotiations with the Egyptians for
post-war bases were not very promising, in late 1946, the service chiefs
began to look at Palestine as a major base for British forces in the Middle
East.36 In the next year, as Palestine blew up into full revolt, another series
of basing proposals were considered including stationing the RAF in Libya
and East Africa. In the interim, the Suez Canal Zone became the primary
British base in the Middle East. However, constant friction with the Egyp-
tians made that an increasingly untenable proposition. Finally, the British
service chiefs decided that Cyprus was best suited as a base location to main-
tain military and political influence in the Middle East.
Britain’s imperial military infrastructure was considerably more than
the nation could reasonably afford. Britain could afford to have a capable
air force with nuclear weapons and modern bombers or a large conven-
tional army and navy to maintain imperial influence – but not both. With
15 per cent of the British GNP devoted to military spending in 1946, the
need to cut defence spending was urgent. In early 1946, when the British
government committed itself to the development and production of
nuclear weapons, the inevitable result was a reduction of imperial military
commitments.37 Development of a modern jet bomber force that could
deliver such nuclear weapons was also a complex technical undertaking
that would require years of lead time and the long-term commitment of a
large proportion of the military budget. In 1948, the RAF issued the oper-
ational requirements for a series of four-engined jet bombers, and the first
of these, the Valiants, became operational in 1955. The Valiant bombers
would quickly be followed by the more capable Vulcans and Victors. A
 The RAF in imperial defence 167
force of 240 bombers was envisioned, and this force would form the core
of British military striking power.38
After the decision for Indian independence was made in early 1946, the
desire of the military chiefs to maintain the vestiges of empire in the
Middle East was justified as part of the strategy of containing communism.
The consequences of British military withdrawal from the Middle East
were described in dire terms by RAF Chief of Staff Arthur Tedder in 1949,
‘The UK armed forces were the only stabilizing influence in areas of
immense economic consequence to the Western World.’ Tedder also
noted that withdrawal from the region ‘could hardly fail to lead to the
disintegration of the Commonwealth and the eventual fall of Africa to
communism’.39 From 1946 to 1956, the primary justification for maintain-
ing an imperial presence in the Middle East and Mediterranean was to
provide secure bases for RAF bombers able to strike the Soviet Union in
case of war. Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field-Marshal Lord Alan-
brooke, first made this argument to the Defence Committee in April
1946.40 Air Marshal Tedder further developed this argument for imperial-
ism in terms of the Anglo-American alliance. Tedder pointed out that in
case of war with the Soviets, the first force that the US could deploy would
be its strategic bombers, and the Americans would need secure bases from
which to operate. Britain was in a position to provide such bases in the
Mediterranean and Middle East, and the British service chiefs argued for a
continued occupation of Libya and development of air bases there.41
This proposal was well received by the Americans during the Anglo-
American defence conferences in late 1947. At the time, the newly formed
USAF Strategic Air Command was looking for suitable locations in the
Mediterranean and Middle East to base their heavy B-36 bombers, which
were capable of carrying nuclear weapons for long distances and the offer
of British bases was very welcome. However, with Britain pulling out of
Palestine and Egypt, Britain had few good base locations to offer the
Americans. By 1950, the Americans finalized agreements with the French
to build strategic bomber bases in Morocco, and Wheelus Field in Libya
became a US air base in the 1950s and with strategic bombers stationed
there until the late 1960s.
Partly because of a shortage of British personnel and resources, and
partly because of the close bonds forged in wartime, the post-war British
government and service chiefs were ready to share imperial responsibilities
in the Mediterranean and Middle East with the Americans. For their part,
the American military and political leadership accepted the position of
their British counterparts that Britain’s continued presence in the region
was a positive and stabilizing factor. In early 1947, citing a lack of resources,
the British government asked the Americans to take over the mission of
supporting the Greek government, at that time desperately engaged in a
civil war with the communists. In March 1947, the Americans responded
with the Truman Doctrine and quickly poured in funds, equipment and
168 J.S. Corum
military advisors for the Greek armed forces. While the US military took
over the primary responsibility to support the Greeks, the RAF mission that
had been training the Royal Hellenic Air Force remained in the country
and worked alongside the Americans to create a Greek air force until the
conflict ended in 1950. The British/American strategic cooperation in
Greece helped accelerate the development of a collective defence strategy
that would cover all of Europe and the Mediterranean. The Greek endeav-
our was also important as the first real victory in the struggle to contain
communism.42
The enormous technological advances of the Second World War and
the high cost of the new technologies had a central bearing on the strategy
for RAF overseas basing. In the 1920s and 1930s, building RAF bases was
neither difficult nor expensive. All the RAF aircraft of that era required for
operations was a relatively flat and dry grass or dirt surface. Add a small
operations tower and a few simple wooden hangers and one had a fully
functioning RAF base. However, the heavy bombers developed during the
war and the new jet aircraft coming into the RAF inventory in the late
1940s required a completely different approach to building air bases. The
Lancaster bomber of the Second World War and the Lincoln heavy
bomber developed at the close of the war required long concrete runways
capable of bearing heavy loads. The new generation of jet fighters and
bombers envisioned in the late 1940s required even longer runways than
the heaviest Second World War aircraft. A 1949 study by the Air Staff noted
that airfields for jet bombers under development would required a load
classification to bear aircraft weighing 180,000–200,000 lb and would have
to be 3,000 yards long and 150 yards wide with taxiways of at least 75 yards
wide. In short, existing RAF bases would have to be rebuilt in order to
operate effectively, and building any new air base would be a time-consum-
ing and expensive undertaking.43 The engineering requirements alone as
well as the costs of building a minimal infrastructure for jet aircraft
required a long planning time. Even with a more generous budget, which
was not realistic under the post-war conditions, the Air Staff would now
have to think carefully about sitting each air base.
Another issue that had to be considered in establishing major air bases
was base security. With violent nationalist movements active throughout
the Middle East and Asia, RAF bases became a lucrative target for groups
trying to force the British and Western powers out of their countries. When
the British pulled out of their Egyptian bases shortly after the war and relo-
cated forces to the Suez Canal Zone, Egyptian nationalists initiated a cam-
paign of attacks against the British bases and personnel. In 1951, when the
Egyptians abrogated the 1936 Anglo/Egyptian basing treaty, the Canal
Zone faced outright insurrection with riots by Egyptians and attacks on
British convoys. Thousands of Egyptian workers at the Canal Zone’s mili-
tary bases, including most of the skilled workers, walked off the job, and
Britain could only maintain the bases by an emergency airlift of 2,000
 The RAF in imperial defence 169
technicians and tradesmen from the UK.44 From that time until the final
withdrawal of British forces from the Canal Zone in 1956, the large British
establishment in the Canal Zone was under constant threat of attack by the
Egyptians.45 The hope to establish Palestine as a major post-war RAF base
of operations also ran into local violence and terrorism. Starting in January
1946, Jewish nationalists attacked RAF radar installations and depots. In
February 1946, a well-planned attack put the important radar station on
Mount Carmel out of action. A week later, Jewish terrorists attacked three
RAF bases and destroyed 20 aircraft in carefully coordinated attacks. The
RAF had to rush in reinforcements to protect the bases, and RAF ground
crew were all armed and trained for ground defence.46 During the insur-
gency in Cyprus, which began in 1955 and lasted until 1959, the RAF again
became a prime target for terrorist attacks by local nationalists. In several
instances, Greek civilian employees of the RAF were able to smuggle
bombs into tightly guarded bases and destroy aircraft parked on the field
or undergoing maintenance. Several RAF personnel were killed by terrorist
attacks carried out by Greek Cypriot nationalists. Eventually, the RAF and
British army had to bring in over 20,000 troops to deal with the insurgency
and secure the air bases which the British depended upon as their major
strategic presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.47

Brushfire wars and counterinsurgency operations

Although strategically and economically necessary, the slow and rather
reluctant withdrawal from empire was punctuated by considerable viol-
ence, usually in the form of nationalist insurgencies. Along with the fairly
large-scale RAF operations conducted in Malaya from 1948 to 1960, the
RAF was also required to support a large number of small operations
against insurgent movements in other colonies. The Cyprus insurgency
(1955–1959) should have been foreseen by the Colonial Ministry, and
local colonial officials had reported on the rising tide of Greek national-
ism in Britain’s key Mediterranean colony for several years. But, as was
often the case, the situation was ignored until the shooting started. The
Greek Cypriot nationalists fielded only a small insurgent force that never
numbered over 250 active fighters and never assembled in large groups to
provide a good target for ground or air forces. The Cypriot insurgents did
not aim for military victory but rather to create enough trouble to weaken
the British will to stay. The Greek Cypriot insurgents conducted a cam-
paign of constant bombings, assassinations and small ambushes, and they
had the advantage of being able to melt into a Greek population that over-
whelmingly supported their efforts. As in Malaya, the RAF supported army
operations with Whirlwind and Sycamore helicopters and also employed
light aircraft for observation. But such tactics were much less effective
against small groups that employed primarily terrorist tactics and could
find sanctuary among the civilian population.48
170 J.S. Corum
The remote British colony of Aden also faced a round of tribal rebellions
in 1947–1949 that required a campaign that resembled the campaigns of
the interwar era with local forces supported by RAF armoured cars tracking
the rebels and the punitive bombing of rebel villages carried out by Lincoln
heavy bombers and Tempest VI fighter bombers of No. 8 Squadron.49 The
Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya (1952–1955) was a major colonial military
operation but fought primarily with local troops and resources. In this case,
the major airpower contribution to defeating the guerrillas was made not by
the RAF but instead by the light civilian aircraft of the Kenya Police Reserve
Wing that flew constant low-level observation patrols over the rebel regions.
As in the French colonial wars of the era, Harvard trainers modified to carry
light bombs and machine guns proved to be the most effective close strike
aircraft. In 1954, the RAF Transport Command was employed to transport
the 49th Brigade from Britain to support counterinsurgency operations. In
the later stages of the campaign, RAF Lincoln bombers relentlessly blasted
known rebel strongholds with thousands of 500-lb bombs. In this case, area
bombing seems to have had a significant morale effect upon the already
desperate Mau Mau remnants, and the last large guerrilla groups soon sur-
rendered.50
The RAF operations in the fight against communist rebels in Malaya
from 1948 to 1960 stand out as a model of effective use of airpower in
counterinsurgency. In contrast to operations before the Second World
War, there was no attempt to provide an ‘air control’ solution to defeat
the insurgents. The ability of the RAF to strike targets with airpower was
largely irrelevant to the kind of war fought by the Malayan insurgents as
the rebels rarely concentrated their forces in large units or fought conven-
tional battles which would have exposed them to air strikes. It was a war of
small insurgent units, hidden in the jungle or villages, relentlessly attack-
ing the British or loyalist Malayans by means of terrorism and ambush and
small attacks. Large operations mounted by the British army early in the
campaign could search the jungle sanctuaries of the rebels for days and
rebels, organized into small units at home in the jungle, found that they
could easily evade the slow and clumsy army units. The British eventually
learned that small light infantry teams, highly trained in jungle opera-
tions, were the best force for tracking down and destroying the rebel
bands. The most notable RAF contribution to the British success in Malaya
was the RAF helicopter squadrons that enabled the light infantry and
police units to operate for days, and even weeks, deep in the jungle. The
RAF’s Sycamore and Whirlwind helicopters provided constant support in
the form of troop lift, resupply and medical evacuation for the infantry
and police. The 40 helicopters of RAF No. 3 Wing enabled the British and
Malayan army and police the ability to keep the rebels under constant
pressure.51
The RAF excelled in a variety of support operations for the ground
forces. RAF Valetta and Dakota transports flying into small airstrips or
 The RAF in imperial defence 171
airdropping supplies enabled the British/Malayan forces to establish and
maintain small forts in jungle and mountain regions inaccessible by road.
In short, the rebels no longer had any safe regions where they could estab-
lish bases. In addition to transport operations, RAF aircraft supported the
government’s propaganda campaign by dropping millions of leaflets over
the jungle urging the rebels to surrender. In a further refinement of the
propaganda war, RAF Valetta transports fitted out with loudspeakers flew
over areas of known rebel activity broadcasting messages from former
rebels urging their comrades to accept government offers of amnesty.
Indeed, the psychological warfare programme supported by the RAF was
remarkably successful according to the many guerrillas who came in to
surrender from 1953 onwards.52
In the final reckoning, the RAF was able to provide exceptionally effect-
ive support to the ground forces in Malaya with a relatively small commit-
ment of forces. The RAF force in Malaya throughout the insurgency
amounted to little more than a hundred aircraft, and most of the aircraft
employed for reconnaissance, strike and transport were the older, piston-
engined Spitfires, Tempests and Dakota transports and not the RAF’s
latest jets. However, the older planes did the job well at a low operating
cost. In strategic terms, Malaya gave the British an important victory in
terms of Cold War containment strategy without detracting from the
RAF’s higher priorities of European and home defence. To this day, the
RAF operations in Malaya provide a useful example of how an air force
can effectively support a counterinsurgency campaign without undermin-
ing its primary conventional war capabilities.

The Commonwealth contribution

Despite Britain’s difficult post-war strategic position, there were some very
positive developments in conducting imperial military operations. In con-
trast with the interwar period, the Commonwealth nations had emerged
from the Second World War as considerable air powers in their own
right.53 Under the new post-war realities, the Commonwealth nations were
no longer interested in asserting their independence within an imperial
context as the empire was visibly in decline. Instead, the Commonwealth
nations now viewed their role in the Commonwealth more as peers than
subordinates and were politically committed to supporting collective
defence of the West. The disorder in Europe and the Middle East and
Asia, coupled with the rising threat of communism, motivated the Com-
monwealth governments to closer cooperation with Britain to support
imperial military operations.
While Canada committed ground, naval and air forces to defend
Europe, Australia took on much of the responsibility to establishing order
in post-war Asia. Australian ground forces and the RAAF reoccupied the
eastern half of the Dutch East Indies in the fall of 1945, and Australia took
172 J.S. Corum
over the role of Commonwealth representation in the occupation of
Japan. From 1945 to 1950, when it was committed to the war in Korea, No.
77 RAAF Squadron was stationed in Japan.54 When the Malayan insur-
gency heated up, the RAAF committed its No. 1 Squadron of Lincoln
bombers and the Dakota transports of No. 38 Squadron to serve in that
colony under RAF command.55 From 1952 to 1954, the jet fighters of Aus-
tralia’s No. 78 Squadron were deployed to Malta, where they defended
Britain’s primary Mediterranean base.56 Other Commonwealth nations and
dominions also contributed to imperial operations. In the later stages of
the Malayan campaign, the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF)
deployed some aircraft to support counterinsurgency operations.57 The
small, but very capable, Rhodesian Air Force deployed two squadrons of
Vampire fighters to Aden in 1958 to help suppress the insurgency there.
From 1959 to 1963, Rhodesian Canberra bombers were stationed on
Cyprus, and Rhodesian Air Force transports augmented the RAF’s trans-
port command during the deployment of British forces to Kuwait during
the 1961 crisis.58
As noted, most of the Commonwealth air force deployments in support
of post-war imperial operations were on a small scale, usually amounting
to a couple of squadrons. However, the support provided by Common-
wealth air forces had more than a symbolic or political value. Taken
cumulatively, the participation of commonwealth contingents in many
peripheral operations allowed the RAF to deploy more of its limited tacti-
cal forces in the 1950s and 1960s to the higher priority mission of NATO
support. Furthermore, the deployment of Commonwealth air forces on
active operations provided those air forces with useful experience that
enhanced their value in the context of broader Western security cap-
abilities.

Strategic transitions
The RAF operations in the Suez campaign of 1956 were the last major
operations carried out in an imperial context. Although the RAF per-
formed well in supporting the Suez operation, the whole campaign can
best be characterized as a strategic fiasco.59 With Britain helping establish
NATO in 1949 and joining SEATO in 1954, the decade after the Second
World War saw a dramatic strategic shift from an imperial strategy to a
strategy within the context of collective defence.
This shift did not, however, signal an end to the RAF’s imperial air
operations. From 1963 to 1965, RAF squadrons supported Britain’s desul-
tory campaign against rebels in Aden until the government decided that
holding the old base there was no longer worth the trouble. From the late
1950s through the 1970s, the RAF was engaged in several small campaigns
in Asia and the Middle East. RAF units successfully supported operations
to defend Brunei against Indonesian aggression in the 1960s and in
 The RAF in imperial defence 173
supporting the government of Oman against insurgents in the 1970s.60
These later campaigns, with the exception of the fighting in Aden, were
not carried out to defend colonial possessions but rather to support pro-
British regimes against primarily external threats. Even as the RAF’s
commitment to imperial defence declined, its ability to conduct very
effective small-scale interventions and to support friendly governments
threatened by insurgency improved. The RAF operations in Brunei from
1962 to 1966, which drew heavily upon the RAF’s recent experience in
Malaya, provide another model of the effective use of airpower in low-
intensity conflict. Largely because of the effective RAF operations in
support of Brunei’s government, the Indonesians dropped their claim to
Brunei in 1966.61

Notes
1 Malcolm Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars (Oxford, 1984), 23.
2 Ibid., 21–22.
3 Charles Miller, Khyber: British India’s North West Frontier (New York, 1977),
311–332.
4 Mark Jacobsen, ‘Only by the Sword: British Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 1920’,
Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2 (1991): 351–352, 358. For an interesting account
of RAF operations in Iraq in 1920, see Squadron leader G.C. Pirie, ‘Some
Experiences of No 6 Squadron in the Iraq Insurrection, 1920’, RAF Air Power
Review, 7 (2004): 1–12.
5 James S. Corum, ‘Air Control: Reassessing the History’, RAF Air Power Review,
4 (2001): 15–36; Jacobsen, ‘Only by the Sword: British Counter-Insurgency in
Iraq, 1920’, 356–357.
6 Jacobsen, ‘Only by the Sword: British Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, 1920’, 357.
7 Flight-Lieutenant F.A. Skoulding, ‘With “Z” Unit in Somaliland’, The RAF Quar-
terly, 2 (1931): 387–396.
8 Smith, British Air Strategy Between the Wars, 28.
9 For a good example of a typical nineteenth/early twentieth century punitive
operation in the British Empire, see Winston Churchill, The Story of the
Malakand Field Force (New York, 1989), originally published 1898. The book is
Churchill’s personal account of an expedition he participated in.
10 David Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The RAF 1919–1939 (Manchester,
1990), 25–27.
11 Ibid., 31.
12 Ibid.
13 Major General H. Rowan-Robinson, ‘Iraq’, RUSI Journal, 78 (1932): 384.
14 See Philip Towle, Pilots and Rebels (London, 1989), 9–55, for a good overview of
the RAF and air control doctrine in the interwar era.
15 On the myths promulgated about RAF air control, see Corum, ‘Air Control:
Reassessing the History’, 22–23.
16 Ibid., 20–21. Later drafts of the RAF’s notes on air control stressed the humani-
tarian aspects of air control. Rebellious villages would be first warned that they
would be bombed if they did not accede to government demands. Given time to
evacuate the village, the aircraft would demolish the houses with bombs, not with
the intention of destroying the village, but with the aim of disrupting daily life.
17 See Basil Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare (London, 1932), 139–161.
Liddell Hart accepted all of the RAF’s positions on air control and was an
174 J.S. Corum
enthusiastic supporter. As military correspondent for the Daily Telegraph,
Liddell Hart was in a good position to influence the public and politicians.
18 The draft of the RAF’s Notes on the Method of Employment of the Air Arm in Iraq
proudly pointed out that ‘within 45 minutes a full-sized village . . . can be
practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured by four or
five planes which offer them no real target and no opportunity for glory or
avarice’. Cited in Towle, Pilots and Rebels, 20.
19 James Corum and Wray Johnson, Airpower and Small Wars (Lawrence, 2003),
66–73, 80–81.
20 Omissi, Air Power and Colonial Control: The RAF 1919–1939, 119–121.
21 Max Arthur, There Shall be Wings: The RAF: 1918 to the Present (London, 1984), 4.
22 In March 1921, the Admiralty drew up a memorandum that outlined the possi-
bility of a conflict with Japan and the British Empire. In case of such a war, the
RN would require a major regional fleet base, and Admiral Jellicoe and the RN
staff identified Singapore to be ‘the key to the British Naval position in the
Pacific’ and urged that it be made impregnable. David Stevens (ed.), The Royal
Australian Navy, Vol. 3 (Melbourne, 2001), 62.
23 Corelli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1986),
280–281.
24 Sebastian Ritchie, Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft Produc-
tion, 1935–1941 (London, 1997), 42–43.
25 Major General I.S.O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Vol. 1
(London, 1954), 29–31.
26 On the RAF in the defence of Singapore and Malaya, see Henry Probert, The
Forgotten Air Force: The RAF in the War Against Japan 1941–1945 (London, 1995),
37–52, 311.
27 Neville Jones, The Beginnings of Strategic Air Power (London, 1987), 111–113.
28 Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, 174–177.
29 In 1938, the South African Air Force consisted of a training school depot, one
active squadron and a small reserve. The Royal Australian Air Force had 227
permanent officers, 1,853 airmen, 52 reserve officers and 346 reserve airmen, a
training school, two depots and eight active squadrons. The RNZAF in 1938
had 36 officers, 160 enlisted men, 68 reserve officers, a training school and a
small depot. See A.G. Boycott, The Elements of Imperial Defence (London, 1939),
193–197, 204, 216–217.
30 Spencer Dunmore, Wings for Victory (Toronto, 1994), 24–33.
31 Air Commodore Henry Probert, The Forgotten Air War: The RAF in the War
Against Japan 1941–1945 (London, 1995), 9.
32 Alan Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force, Vol. 2 (Melbourne, 2001), 50–51.
33 Ibid., 54.
34 Corelli Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities 1945–1950 (New
York, 1995), 76–77.
35 Air Chief Marshal David Lee, Eastward: A History of the RAF in the Far East
1945–1972 (London, 1984), 38–51.
36 Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities 1945–1950, 65–67.
37 R.N. Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New
York, 1968), 37.
38 Martin Navias, ‘Strengthening the Deterrent? The British Medium Bomber
Force Debate, 1955–56’, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 11 (1988): 203–219.
39 Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities 1945–1950, 97.
40 Simon Ball, ‘Bomber Bases and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1945–1949’,
Journal of Strategic Studies, 14 (1991): 515–533.
41 Ibid., 519–520, 526.
42 Corum and Johnson, Airpower and Small Wars, 99–102.
 The RAF in imperial defence 175
43 Robin Higham, Bases of Air Strategy (UK, 1998), 235–236.
44 Air Chief Marshal David Lee, Wings in the Sun: A History of the RAF in the Mediter-
ranean 1945–1986 (London, 1989), 45–47.
45 Ibid., 47–51.
46 Ibid., 16–231.
47 Ibid., 108–122.
48 Bruce Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 1919–1976 (Santa
Monica, CA, 1989), 68–71.
49 Ibid., 72–75.
50 Ibid., 57–68.
51 Corum and Johnson, Airpower and Small Wars, 190–199.
52 Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 1919–1976, 54–57.
53 For example, the RAAF was a force of 5,620 aircraft and 173,622 men in
August 1945. See Stephens, The Royal Australian Air Force, 173.
54 Ibid., 216.
55 Ibid., 246–250.
56 Ibid., 222–223.
57 Corum and Johnson, Airpower and Small Wars, 193.
58 Ibid., 296.
59 For a detailed account of RAF operations in the Suez Campaign, see Lee,
Wings in the Sun: A History of the RAF in the Mediterranean 1945–1986, 74–107.
60 On the campaign in Brunei, see Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict,
1919–1976, 82–86. On the RAF operations in Aden and Oman, see Corum and
Johnson, Airpower and Small Wars, 199–218.
61 Hoffman, British Air Power in Peripheral Conflict, 1919–1976, 83–86.
9 Tradition and system
British intelligence and the old
world order, 1715–1956
John Robert Ferris

This chapter assesses British intelligence between 1715 and 1956, with a
focus on structure and evolution. It emphasises the relationship between
power, strategy and intelligence, and systems and traditions – means by
which people gather and assess data for specific purposes, against loose
combinations of ideas and practices about how to do so if one must. British
intelligence, responding to changes in supply and demand, began with
systems, turned to traditions, and returned to systems. Progress was not
linear. Technical failures or successes affected policy, in complex ways.
Between 1715 and 1793, Britain was unique as a power, as was its need
for news, but not its intelligence system. It was a European power, sepa-
rated from the continent by water, with overseas possessions next to many
strong peoples. Only internal subversion or a navy superior off its coasts,
convoying a large army, or the two in tandem, could threaten its security,
yet it had major and vulnerable interests in Hanover, the Low Countries
and the world. Any squabble in Europe might concern Britain, though so
too it could ignore major changes in power. Several countries could chal-
lenge it, but any great danger must involve France. The British state
needed to exert power on the continent and the world and to block two
great threats: first, a dynastic rival, the Jacobites, supported by enemies
within and without, and second, the large fleets of two loose allies, France
and Spain. These threats could be unleashed by the secret decision of a
few men. That happened regularly. British authorities made intelligence
their first line of defence against these threats. It fit the bill.
Until 1745, contra-espionage against Jacobites was the great task of
British intelligence. It guided the collection of diplomatic material,
spurred the development of code-breaking and forced close coordination
between sources. Spies monitored Jacobites abroad, as mail intercepts did
the literate and political elite at home, routinely gathered through general
warrants which allowed the opening of all letters containing ‘suspected
treasonable correspondence’.1 External intelligence was divided. Colonial
authorities and naval and military ones on campaign gathered whatever
information they needed, through their own means. Strategic and diplo-
matic intelligence in Europe was collected with more centralisation,
 Tradition and system 177
backed by a specialist agency, the Deciphering Branch, about five-men
strong. The eighteenth century was the first great age for communications
intelligence, and Britain a great practitioner. Everywhere, able code-break-
ers had easy access to foreign traffic, popped in the post or carried in
despatch bags which could be opened easily and surreptitiously. For every-
one, diplomatic dispatches were key to strategy or survival, in an integ-
rated, opportunistic and multilateral system, where minor shifts in position
by many states might reshape one’s position, and renversements des alliances
overturn it. Because capabilities were clear and powerful, the intentions of
foreign statesmen were unusually central to strategy and equally difficult to
determine. Statesmen avidly sought to penetrate the uncertainty or security
around these matters, especially in France, by combining code-breaking
with human sources. Regularly, foreign ministers read all the traffic of
ambassadors while negotiating with them. This advantage was doubled by
Britain’s tendency to negotiate not in foreign capitals but London: thus, it
read ambassador’s reports and their master’s retorts, while minimising the
exposure of its own secrets. Statesmen routinely circulated and assessed
solutions. They had ambassadors gather detailed intelligence by all sources,
on specific matters such as the views of individual people or military prepa-
rations. Diplomats did such work as a matter of course. Thus, in 1737, the
Foreign Secretary told the ambassador in Paris, he

cannot be too alert in this critical conjuncture, and you will therefore
have persons in the several ports of France to send you conattnad-
vices; and it might not be amiss if you employ’d proper persons all
along the coast to be viewing and observing the motions of the Irish
regiments, that upon the least appearance of anything that might give
a jealousy, Your Excellency might send His Majesty notice of it. We
shall have a considerable squadron at home, which if there should be
any design of making any attempt either from France or Spain, will be
able upon the least hint from Your Excellency, to dispose itself so as to
defeat any enterprise of that kind.2

Officials working against their hosts produced most human intelli-

gence, but all sorts of Britons abroad watched the Jacobites and thus
foreign states. From 1760, Britain created a second system of espionage
through the non-official means best able to acquire it, commercial
sources. Richard Wolters, ‘His Majesty’s Agent at Rotterdam’, exploited its
connections to mercantile ports abroad to gain broad coverage of polit-
ical, financial and naval matters. By 1798, after France conquered the
Netherlands, the Foreign Secretary noted the need to develop intelligence
‘through the means of some mercantile house at Hamburgh, whose corre-
spondence with Holland might be constant and unsuspected’. Forms of
political warfare, like propaganda, were normal tools of policy at home
and abroad. Bribes to statesmen (frequently between £1,000 and £10,000)
178 J.R. Ferris
stood second only to the subsidy of states as a diplomatic weapon in
Central Europe.3
Between 1715 and 1793, espionage served Britain well, perhaps better
than any other power in Europe, save in one area. Intelligence on mar-
itime capabilities in peacetime, like the location of warships, was easy to
find but not on operational matters in war. Limits to signals made war-
ships at sea hard to contact or locate. Fleets were desperately ignorant of
anything beyond visual range of their furthest frigates, fifteen miles by day
and four at night.4 The difficulty in finding enemies or forcing them to
battle made the Royal Navy (RN) play for safety at sea, keeping most of its
warships in home waters, to block the gravest danger, that a strong enemy
fleet might suddenly dominate those seas. This weakened its sea power
elsewhere, at some cost between 1742 and 1763 and a high one in 1783.
Intelligence mattered even more to Britain during the French Revolu-
tionary and Napoleonic wars, though its enemy was able. Political warfare
aided France in the Low Countries, Italy and Germany, while Napoleon
Bonaparte processed operational and strategic information with unprece-
dented skill. Intelligence multiplied French power in Central Europe, just
as it did British to the west, despite some failures. The value of code-break-
ing declined because diplomacy did. Between 1793 and 1812, Britain had
increasingly few foreign ambassadors at home or for negotiations abroad. It
offered greater bribes and subsidies than before to less effect. During 1797,
William Pitt was willing to pay French ministers £450,000 to buy an accept-
able peace, drawn from Indian revenues and secret service, ‘without the
necessity of ever disclosing the transaction’. In 1803, Britain offered Jerome
Bonaparte even more, to make his brother tolerate British control of Malta,
so to salvage peace.5 British aid for French resistance to the revolution had
some success, more than France had with revolutionaries in the UK. Spies
provided accurate and trusted coverage on political and military matters.
Authorities in Whitehall ran some agents in French-occupied territory, but
most were controlled by officials stationed nearby, such as Richard Lamb,
the consul in Frankfort, or Richard Wellesley in Spain.6 Four messengers
were ‘constantly engaged at the hazard of their lives if discovered in convey-
ing the correspondence to & from our Secret Agents abroad’.7 Between
1804 and 1812, Britain had more spies than diplomats in Europe. This
material aided strategy and diplomacy less than it generally had done
between 1715 and 1793, while British operational intelligence reached new
peaks in absolute quality and relative superiority over its foe. In the penin-
sula, the Duke of Wellington ably and aggressively used a great system of
military intelligence, combining cartography and cryptography and overlap-
ping human sources for tactical, operational and strategic matters.8 This
material was fundamental to his defensive success in 1810, his offensive one
of 1812 and his triumph of 1813. Knowledge aided the RN even more as a
force multiplier. It found a special solution to the general problems with
communication and intelligence. Close blockade pinned enemy warships in
 Tradition and system 179
port, which let the RN determine the location of almost all of them on the
Atlantic coast of Europe and most in the Mediterranean Sea. Without close
blockade, Britain might have lost the war. Its value lay no more in opera-
tions than intelligence, where it was almost the functional equivalent of
Room 40 during the First World War. Whenever the enemy broke from
blockade, intelligence became as difficult as ever, forcing even Horatio
Nelson into bizarre evolutions during 1798 and 1804. Then, his best source
of intelligence was his sea log, built up over thirty years of service, which let
him predict meteorological and nautical conditions with unusual accuracy.9
The generation after 1815 was the Indian summer of eighteenth-
century British espionage. It focused above all on France, where the
ambassador between 1815 and 1830, Lord Stuart de Rothesay, gathered
news by all means, including spies. From 1824 to 1839, Britain also sub-
sidised two Englishmen to report on opposition groups, whom officials
could not routinely meet in this divided state. Statesmen read these
reports, though most comments are unfriendly. The Foreign Secretary,
Lord Palmerston, called them ‘worse than Trash’.10 Meanwhile, between
1793 and 1825, governments feared political threats from the lower
orders at home, against which they relied on spies and the interception
of mail.11
Between 1830 and 1846, Britain increasingly abandoned espionage
against European states and its own citizens, including the only cen-
tralised part of its older system. It ceased the use of spies and general war-
rants at home. In the tumultuous years after 1815, postmasters regularly
intercepted the mail of specific people and sometimes were told to ‘detain
and open any letters’ to and from specific towns thought ‘to be of a suspi-
cious nature, and likely to convey seditious or treasonable information, or
to contain money likely to be applied for the purpose of promoting sedi-
tious or other Disturbances’. From 1830, far fewer intercepts were
ordered, and these were more specific and less political.12 Meanwhile,
political espionage stopped in Paris, because France lacked the will and
means to threaten Britain and old agents provided little material, while
new ambassadors disliked spying on their hosts and easily gathered
information from liberal, bureaucratic and constitutional regimes,
whether named monarchies or republics. Demand declined and supply
failed. Britain abandoned its code-breaking agency, as did most European
countries, partly for technical reasons. Diplomatic dispatches, moved by
rapid and reliable couriers, were harder to purloin, while telegraph
carried messages of lesser moment, covered by codes which could be
broken only through new forms of technical expertise. That scarcely
seemed worth the bother; therefore, neither did black chambers. The
British one was of mediocre value after 1815. Though one authority
regards changes in cryptanalysis as the difference between Palmerston’s
successes of the 1830s and his failures of later years, that statesman may
have gained more by sending letters which he wanted foreign leaders to
180 J.R. Ferris
open than by reading their mail. Nor did Palmerston press to improve the
system – his correspondence about code-breaking focused on pensions
not directions. In this context, the embarrassment ministers felt at reading
other gentlemen’s mail, and even more, being caught at it, killed the
black chamber dead. Internal threats, independent princes or revolution-
aries, however, made Indian authorities intercept mail for a decade longer
and revive that practice a decade earlier than at home.13
These changes demand explanation. One has been found in attitudes.
Throughout the Victorian era, Christopher Andrew suggests, British intel-
ligence was hampered by a belief that gentlemen could not be spies.14 This
point has force and limits. From 1830, British statesmen, never pure cynics
even in the ancien regime, became increasingly high minded. Even so, few
practices save cannibalism were beyond the pale for them, so long as they
were not caught publicly in the act. Statesmen had differing appetites for
the fruits of espionage. Some found the taste repugnant; others deemed it
a delicacy beyond compare; most sampled the dish pragmatically, accord-
ing to hunger or need. Changes in attitude explain part of the turn in
British espionage but not all. Equally, its existing spy and code-breaking
services failed, while Britain was secure. Given the break with Hanover, the
constraints on French expansion, especially in the Low Countries, the fact
other powers paid to maintain the status quo while Whitehall tolerated
the greatest challenges to it, Italian and German nationalism, few squab-
bles on the continent seemed to endanger Britain while Europe survived
its absence. Britain turned from being a European power with an overseas
empire, to a world power based off Europe, but not of it. Overwhelming at
sea, and on most imperial frontiers, it confronted no external threat, and
even more, no internal one.
No major state aimed to damage vital British interests or could – the
greatest dangers between 1820 and 1890, French naval construction or a
Russian threat to India, were small. So to threaten Britain, other countries
must develop great capabilities, in time-consuming and obvious ways. The
eighteenth-century problem of intelligence at sea remained, but was irrele-
vant, because no one cared or dared to challenge the RN. The rise of radio
solved the threat which emerged around 1900, more through its impact on
communication than intelligence, strengthening the strongest sea power,
by letting it find its enemies and contain them. Even considering the events
of 1854–71, the centre of world power, Europe, was stable. Capabilities
were known. Most power in the system backed the status quo. Compared
with the eighteenth century, major states had little at risk, less need for
secret intelligence and more inhibitions about its collection. Most states
moved from the practice, Britain slightly further than usual. Across
Europe, statesmen were more open with each other and lied less: secrets
were fewer and easier to uncover. One Prime Minister, Johnny Russell, told
his Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, ‘Your very interesting letters
confirm what I always thought – that a hundred spies cannot ascertain so
 Tradition and system 181
much as an English gentleman in whom Princes and Ministers believe that
they can safely trust’.15 Personal friendships and the Coburg connection
informed Britain of continental politics at the highest of levels. Uniquely in
modern history, British statesmen did not fear an internal threat – not sur-
prisingly, given the ease with which they weathered the Chartists or
widened the franchise. They relied on detectives, despite doubts of their
competence, to penetrate Irish political crime, but elsewhere in Britain
abandoned the accoutrements of a political police. Only a bad regime
required them, and they were good.16
Victorians had and felt less need for secret intelligence than British
regimes in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Open sources illumin-
ated most of their problems, but not all, including intelligence in wartime
and on strategic dangers. Victorian governments collected information on
these issues as a matter of course, but in odd ways, which shaped British
intelligence until 1914. Basic information for strategic purposes was gath-
ered through open sources and processed through permanent agencies,
ultimately specialised ones. Secret intelligence was handled through a per-
sonalised system. Victorians often created bureaux to handle clandestine
tasks for a few years or decades, but these vanished when that problem
did. Prime ministers, foreign secretaries, viceroys of India, other colonial
authorities and generals abroad, senior officials within the Admiralty, the
FO, the Home Office, the War Office and the Government of India either
ran these networks or gathered the information themselves. They directed
collection in a loose and decentralised fashion, often leaving sources to
guide themselves. Intelligence was assessed by the statesmen who acted on
it. This organisation was more useful for imperial security than European
diplomacy, a pattern which persisted to some extent until 1939, because it
reflected British concerns. The system was haphazard, and its effect vari-
able: sometimes, it provided material of extraordinary quality, being well
suited to Lords Salisbury and Rosebery between 1885 and 1900, but
usually its quality and influence were below the level normal between 1715
and 1793 or after 1914.
Between 1840 and 1914, Britain abandoned political warfare in
western countries, where ministers did not spy on their hosts. They did so
in Russia and also in non-western states, where secret service funds rou-
tinely were used to bribe officials, though diplomats purported to dislike
such actions.17 During the Russo-Turkish war in 1877, the minister in
Istanbul, Henry Layard, reported that he had received useful information
through ‘a little s.s. which I hope you will not grudge. . . . I have a great
dislike for the employment of such men, but one is obliged to have
recourse to them at such a time as the present’.18 All ministers knew how
to conduct espionage, but many had scruples, and none had to do any-
thing distasteful. In 1879–81, the minister in Washington worked with the
Home Office in espionage against Fenian subversion, while the ambas-
sador in Paris held that:
182 J.R. Ferris
the best chance of dealing with such matters effectively and without
political and diplomatic inconvenience, should be that the Agents for
this purpose should be employed by the English Police Authorities,
that these Agents should be ordered to keep clear of the Embassy, and
that I should really and truly know nothing of them or their proceed-
ings.
Matters were accordingly settled, & I understand this arrangement
to be still subsisting, and attach very great importance to the
Embassy’s being bona fide entirely clear of all detective proceedings
in France about these matters.
Experience showed that it might have proved very inconvenient if a
statement to this effect could not have been made in Parliament,
although it was not actually made.19

This approach was filled with ambiguities. In 1901, the ambassador in St

Petersburg, Charles Hardinge, ran a secret informant, ‘a high official at the
Miny, for F.A. whose statements have on many occasions invariably proved
correct’, acquiring information through his ‘indiscretion. . . . He has
however to be managed carefully, and he cannot always be got to speak’.
Hardinge thought the systematic Tsarist attempts to steal documents from
his embassy not merely ‘medieval but . . . simply barbarous, and unworthy
of any Government with any pretensions to be treated as that of a civilized
country’.20 Yet, Victorians specialised in precisely this form of barbarism,
which matched code-breaking in value. While the whole story is unknown,
Britain commonly stole state papers in Russia and Turkey and occasionally
in Bulgaria and China.21 During the negotiations at Paris which ended the
Crimean war, the Foreign Secretary, Clarendon, ran a ‘secret source of
intelligence’, in the Russian mission, able to acquire copies of its corre-
spondence.22 A few years later, the Military Attaché at St Petersburg
acquired much material on Russian policy in the Balkans, showing it ‘aims
at the provocation of an insurrection which might possibly extend even to
Constantinople. The formation of a Secret Panslavonic Society & the trans-
mission of arms to Servia are only episodes in the intrigue’.23 Between 1874
and 1878, his successor stole documents which illuminated Tsarist policy in
Asia. Such work went on, less spectacularly, in later decades.24 From 1880,
many sources gave Britain major documents from the Porte. Ethics rarely
constrained such actions. In 1910, however, when a Military Attaché wished
to bribe officials to gain British firms advance information on Turkish mili-
tary orders, the FO refused: ‘It would be doing work which would properly
be done by the commercial firms interested themselves, and that it would
tend to encourage them in lack of enterprise and initiative’.25 One should
leave such initiative to Vickers and could.
In the Victorian era, ambassadors became disassociated from espionage
and consuls did not, while Military Attachés often became part-time spymas-
ters. Intelligence turned from the eighteenth-century focus on diplomatic
 Tradition and system 183
intentions, towards one on strategic planning, military capabilities, arms
shipments and, from 1865, contra-espionage against imperial threats based
throughout the world, especially Irish and Indian rebels. Between 1815 and
1914, consuls in Brest, Antwerp and New York remained the standard
source of naval intelligence. In 1828, Wellington referred to ‘my secret
agent at Brest (who is also the King’s consul there)’. Over the next eighty
years, that consulate regularly received £50 per year for intelligence on
France’s main naval base.26 In 1855, during the Crimean war, the Antwerp
Legation was ordered to monitor contraband and American ships, and
during the Pendjah crisis of 1885, to provide ‘prompt and timely informa-
tion of any negotiations for the purchase by foreign agents of any British or
other Ocean going Steamers’.27 In 1890, Lord Salisbury and his Permanent
Under Secretary (PUS), Philip Currie, ordered all consuls in Black Sea
ports to monitor signs of a Russian strike at Istanbul, through their own
observations or any means they might employ.28 Nothing better charac-
terised Victorian intelligence than the fact that a prime minister and PUS
personally directed an espionage network consisting of British officials.
Businessmen became a greater source than before. Many consuls were
officials, merchants and members of old expatriate communities. The
family of Charles Cattley, Britain’s intelligence chief in the Crimea during
1855, had lived in Russia for a century, while several generations of the
Stephens family served as consuls and spies in Baku. Nor was faith limited
to British businessmen. In 1821, one diplomat noted, ‘The first news always
comes to Rothschild’. This family cooperated closely with another ambas-
sador deeply involved in espionage, de Rothesay.29 During the war of 1877,
the intelligence authority for the Army, John Simmonds, considered how
to ‘obtain correct information from Russia of the preparations occurring in
the Russian Dockyards in the event of the Consuls being withdrawn’. Prob-
ably British merchants would not do so,

both by a sense of honour towards the Russian authorities and by fear

of compromising their own interests in the event of discovery. . . . The
most likely mode of getting the information required would be to inter-
est the class of Jewish Bankers who have correspondents all through the
country & are always well informed as to what is being done by the
Government. The matter is one of much difficulty and delicacy and
even danger to men who may be sent out at short notice and it is by no
means certain that this last consideration apart those Bankers whose
interests are really identified with those of the country would be willing
to give information that would be prejudicial to Russia.30

British intelligence particularly relied on commercial links between India

and Central Asia. By 1830, the East India Company ordered the Govern-
ment of India to obtain ‘secretly from native merchants information of
every event of political interest that may occur’ in Central Asia. While
184 J.R. Ferris
serving as commissioner for Sind during the 1850s, Bartle Frere so used
the commercial network of a major merchant.31 These sources, friendly
towards Britain or hoping to curry its favour, provided most of India’s
information on Central Asia and the personnel and cover for the central
element of its intelligence system, the only permanent one retained by
Victorian Britain, the ‘newswriters’, Indians abroad reporting news in the
public domain – or bazaar gossip.32
From 1870, a new form of human intelligence entered the equation.
Police detectives handled contra-espionage against political crime, some-
times aided by private ones. Pinkertons worked for the Bank of England
against American forgers in the US and the UK. In 1914, it claimed, ‘We
have always done and are doing the work for Scotland Yard’, and also
‘anarchistis sic work for the German, French and Italian Governments’.
This source combined local expertise with uncertain loyalty. During the
Boer War, the New York Consulate noted,

The Customs Authorities treat manifests as confidential documents

and tho’ I am employing Pinkerton & getting a certain amount of
information from them, I do not feel sure that they are not in the pay
of the S.A.R. at the same time. (The Naval Attaché) Captain Ottley
made a suggestion that detectives might be sent out from England; do
you think this would be feasible. There are a certain number who
have a knowledge of New York but they would of course be known to
some of Pinkerton’s people and to some of the New York police. It
might be possible to send some detectives from Canada.33

Similar fears dogged British security during 1914–15, when Pinkertons

became fundamental to imperial intelligence in the US.34
Between 1815 and 1880, military intelligence followed old models.
Usually without specialised intelligence officers or offices, the RN and the
British and Indian armies collected, synthesised and used data. Field intel-
ligence followed the Peninsular pattern. During 1854–8, in Crimea and
India, commanders integrated information and planning, while a civilian
with local expertise, a consul or district officer, with a tiny staff, gathered
and processed data. In peacetime, the collection of strategic data varied
from the sporadic (Crimea) to the systematic (coastal charts). Assessment
and planning occurred only when necessary, when senior officers from
the best educated branch of either service correlated intelligence and
strategy, almost as a form of applied mathematics. The Hydrographer’s
Office coordinated intelligence and war planning for the RN as two aging
engineers, John Burgoyne and John Simmonds, did for the army in 1854
and 1877, respectively.35 Military intelligence often failed in elementary
ways, as with the surprise of the Indian ‘mutiny’ and the failure to take
Sevastapol quickly or prepare for a winter campaign in Crimea, but it also
could become excellent with rare speed.
 Tradition and system 185
This system worked better than one might expect, but it faced prob-
lems beyond its power as a world political and economic system emerged,
and the railway, steamship and telegraph revolutionised communications.
They knit isolated areas into one world, where any problem affected them
all, and their correlation created new ones. These problems affected no
state more than Britain, the central arch of the world system; none could
gain more from solving them or had to. Departments found hints to solu-
tions from their experiences with the telegraph and information manage-
ment, while Victorian civil services, the German General Staff and the
practice of political statistics provided models of how bureaucracies could
apply data processing to decision making.
These solutions were applied through loosely coordinated steps over a
thirty-year period. No one planned the outcome, but it suited British aims
and means, at some cost. Every agency approached information in an
administratively easy way for itself, which later complicated coordination.
Firms made Britain the centre of world communications and information.
This killed the regionalised structure of strategy and intelligence, and
created a centralised one, worldwide. Statesmen used the system without
knowing it existed and then strove to strengthen it. From 1880, to improve
the collation and collection of information, and its use in real time,
departments established specialist agencies: the Military Intelligence
Department (MID), the Foreign Intelligence Committee (FIC) and the
Indian Intelligence Branch. Characteristically, the latter stemmed from
the belief that, for ‘the rapid commencement and vigorous prosecution of
war in any direction’, the Indian Army needed ‘some organization . . . for
collecting statistics, and for arranging in time of peace, the mass of
important records which doubtless exist in the several offices of the
Supreme and local Governments’ and a staff ‘able to transfer its functions
to the field’.36 In this development, old growths constrained new ones.
Only after years of effort, did the FIC take over assessment of coastal
defences and warships from the Hydrographer and Director of Naval Con-
struction. At first, its duties were purely factual to

collect, classify and record with a complete index all information

which has a naval character, or which may be of value during Naval
operations. . . . When recording the source whence information is to
be derived is invariably to be mentioned, so that the evidence may be
weighed, and original documents sent for, when necessary. . . . The
Committee will not be called upon to express their own opinions, or
to record them, though they may often have to record the opinions of
others; and they are to be careful to distinguish between facts and
matters of opinion.37

This change improved collection, estimates and strategy. Around 1885,

the MID and the Naval Intelligence Department (NID, successor to the
186 J.R. Ferris
FIC) took on the duties of general staffs, including war planning, as states-
men saw the need for a reasoned and imperial strategy. The NID of seven
officers and five clerks was ordered to ‘collect, sift and record and lay
before the Board all information relating to maritime matters likely to be
of use in war’ and develop operational plans. ‘The essence of its work is to
be “Preparation for War” ’.38 The MID, a combination of general staff and
assessment bureau, often worked directly for prime ministers and foreign
secretaries, providing a more powerful and integrated system of collection,
estimation and action than any other state of the time possessed, or Britain
would know again until 1942, applied to imperial issues.39 After 1902, these
bodies became general and naval staffs. The NID and MID, their other
roles hived off, focused strictly on intelligence. Their influence in planning
declined, but estimates were incorporated well into strategy, while collec-
tion improved. The Indian Intelligence Branch worked purely on intelli-
gence, while in 1906, the FO was restructured so better to process
information in diplomacy.
Between 1880 and 1900, information processing and strategic decision
making were transformed. Departments maximised the collection and col-
lation of an increased mass of open and official information. Specialist
bureaucracies, rather than engineers or statesmen, assessed information,
which was better circulated. The FO sent consular reports direct to the
Admiralty rather than waiting on covering letters. The NID and MID
entered a ‘semi-official relationship’, ‘to avoid the delay and formality of
official communications, & to facilitate free intercourse’. Yet, when the
MID called for some coordination of collection, the NID noted ‘the mili-
tary authorities will have little or no information to communicate to us
since the enemy being on the water, the military forces will not be in
contact with him’.40 Official and open sources were honed but not secret
ones. The NID thought RN officers and Naval Attachés its ‘most trustwor-
thy and important’ sources, followed by ‘Consuls who have served in the
Navy’ and newspapers. The closest it sailed to secret sources was when a
Naval Attaché turned a ‘strong glass’ on Russian warships from the
window of the British consulate at Odessa.41 The British and Indian armies
used secret sources more, but preferred official and open ones, and
focused on topographical intelligence along imperial frontiers and train-
ing officers in field intelligence. In 1892, noted the MID, the original idea
behind the Indian Intelligence Branch was ‘that its chief & all its members
would be more or less explorers & provide material to collate’.42 ‘An
Officer should not be sent in any position in which he may be compro-
mised, & . . . if we are to employ spies we should get them from some
other source, than the commissioned ranks of the Army’.43 The main
exception to this rule actually illuminates it. The Survey of India did pass
trained agents in and out of Central Asia but not for espionage against
Russia. Rather, a systematic series of explorations between Russian and
British territory were conducted by Indians, the ‘Pundits’, who had special
 Tradition and system 187
training, worked under cover, and provided geographical data of strategic
moment. Yet, they were not used to collect military intelligence, and the
Survey exchanged its data with Russian geographers.44
Britain gained more knowledge by information than any state had ever
done through intelligence and processed and used it better. It developed
information superiority over all other states; this was not lost until 1950.
This success defined the need for intelligence. Open sources answered
most questions, leaving just a few hard and special cases of internal or
external threats. These were handled by the responsible department: the
Admiralty, working direct with consuls; the Foreign Secretary or PUS,
working through the MID; the Irish Special Branch, Home Office, Indian
Intelligence Branch or its provincial Special Branches, through detectives.
Rarely did these units act together, except for imperial contra-espionage.
In the 1870s, spies and detectives run by Canada, India, ambassadors and
the Home Office monitored Fenian subversion.45 In the 1880s, detectives
working for British authorities in Punjab and Egypt, and diplomats in
Paris and St Petersburg, penetrated a farcical effort to rally internal and
external enemies against the empire by Dalip Singh, claimant to the
kingdom of Lahore.46 British authorities in many countries watched the
shadows for a Muslim menace, especially Wahabism. The consul in Jeddah
was charged with monitoring ‘the politico-religious movements, which
starting from the head-quarters of Islam may soon reach the
Muhammedans of India’.47
Britain addressed these problems case by case. This process, especially
its failures, shaped the rise of intelligence. From 1890, the inability to
detect Russian thrusts on Istanbul and India worried Britain. The attempts
to overcome ignorance took its intelligence to the edge of its competence.
Britain had some success against the first case, by making consuls in the
Black Sea monitor Russian shipping, while linking the Mediterranean
Fleet and its embassy in Istanbul by rapid and covert communications but
not against the second.48 Simply to increase the number of newswriters
was pointless, since Indian officials mistrusted them. Nor could secret
agents easily pass to and from Turkistan. Few native officials of the
Government of India could travel secretly through Central Asia, while
Europeans were rather conspicuous in that area. These problems left
Britain uncertain and open to Tsarist blackmail. New ones followed.49
Between 1898 and 1902, the European and world systems became one.
A series of crises in Asia and Africa, some blamed on intelligence failures,
triggered fears of danger which echoed until 1914. The threats were real
but overstated. Despite them, Britain’s decline in power and the need to
actively manage Europe so to keep it stable, divided and peaceful, Britain
easily held its own and scored a great run of success in policy. Still, the
tension reduced its tolerance for uncertainty and definition of menace
and raised its demand for intelligence. Its concerns were unlike those
of any other state, overwhelmingly imperial, whether about external or
188 J.R. Ferris
internal threats, and maritime, indifferent to European diplomacy.
Against occult and terrorist bodies, ‘not merely the bomb in Calcutta,
Poona, etc., but the little nests of deviltry in Paris, New York and other
centres’, even staunch Liberals advocated a political police.50 Fears of an
internal– external threat sparked the origin of MI5, the Indian Criminal
Intelligence Department (CID) and the ‘A’ agency. Old institutions and
attitudes constrained new developments, which stemmed from a desire to
solve known and particular problems, rather than general and unknown
ones. Intelligence easily could tell authorities what they wanted to learn
but not what they did not know they could know. Like Victorians, Edwar-
dians were more willing to use intelligence than to collect it. Still, strategic
problems and intelligence needs overlapped, and agencies created for
one problem could evolve to handle others. Special Branch, initially
focused on Irish revolutionaries, turned to monitor spies and revolution-
aries around 1900. By 1910, it was authorised to work closely with MI5 on
its ‘enquiries regarding the many alleged instances of foreign espionage
and other suspicious incidents which are frequently brought to our
notice’. William Melville, MI5’s first operative, had long service as a police
detective. However, a true political police re-emerged only in 1914. Fear
of Tsarist contacts with Indian revolutionaries, and the hope of reading
Russian military traffic in war, underwrote the rise of the Indian code-
breaking agency, but it soon focused on diplomatic traffic.51 Intelligence
evolved as a group of loosely connected solutions to particular problems,
defined more by personality than policy, which caused odd general
results. Code-breaking emerged in India but not England and was used
against China but not Germany. India had more intelligence officers
abroad for contra-espionage than Britain had for espionage. The MID, the
empire’s premier intelligence agency, the only one with a general
mandate or expertise, had little secret funding of its own. Still, the devel-
opments were powerful.
From 1900, Britain slowly came to collect human intelligence through
specialist bureaus, not well coordinated, staffed by army, navy and police
officers and focusing on strategy and security rather than diplomacy. It
began with the ‘A’ agency, an import–export company, based in Antwerp,
run by the MID, working in the arms trade, to monitor potential threats. It
was followed by the establishment of a permanent field intelligence service
in India, an outstation in Meshad to improve the monitoring of Russian
Central Asia, a worldwide contra-espionage service by the CID, MI5 in
Britain and a ‘secret service’ [later called MI1c, MI6 and the Secret Intelli-
gence Service (SIS)].52 The British Army and Navy began to prepare for
the use of radio intelligence in war. The Indian Army created a code-break-
ing agency, which had success against the diplomatic traffic of Persia and
China, its material widely circulated in the Indian and British governments.
Most of these agencies focused on threats, known or feared, which were
hard to detect, like Indian revolutionaries or German warship construction.
 Tradition and system 189
Ultimately, they became permanent and general purpose bureaus, but that
effect was not the intent. Sources remained Victorian. When considering an
espionage system for war with Germany, one minister noted,

There are a good many Swedes in business who have married English
wives, especially in Gothenburg where the tone and feeling is quite
English, and there no doubt, among the class of agents and commer-
cial travellers, who do a big business in Germany, some suitable mater-
ial might be found.53

A leading source on German warships was the Director of Vickers, Com-

mander Trevor Dawson, working through ‘special agencies’ and his own
observations in war shipbuilding yards. Lloyds advised the Admiralty on
how to monitor naval movements on the Kiel Canal.54 Modes of organisa-
tion drew and departed from Victorian forms. In 1903, the MID thought it

obvious that we, from our geographical position, do not require in

peace time elaborate espionage agencies in the interior of any Euro-
pean Country. Our peace requirements in the matter of secret service,
unlike those of Continental nations having extensive land frontiers to
guard, differ much from our War requirements; it is not necessary for
us, as it is for them, to maintain an army of spies in our neighbour’s ter-
ritory to report his slightest movements. . . . We require two distinct
systems, one for peace, and one for war.

In peace, ‘we should be able to obtain all the information and warning we
require’ by the press, ‘a few intelligent observers’ at capitals and seaports
and ‘special agents’ to watch military technology. During war, ‘agencies’
in neutral states, run by two ‘collectors’ (officers, perhaps assisted by
diplomats), would control spies and cut-outs in enemy countries, sift their
material and send it to Britain via ‘forwarders’, generally legations. The
MID should establish such a system in advance.55 The FO agreed, and
Britain moved on the idea, which aided the expansion of human intelli-
gence from August 1914, so creating the third-party rule – that intelli-
gence officers would not operate against their host state.
Intelligence was moving from the Victorian tradition of espionage but
had not broken from it. In particular, the system for diplomatic intelli-
gence of 1914 was weaker than that of 1792 or 1875. This happened
because open sources worked well; gentlemen working as and with gentle-
men could gain most of the information Britain knew it needed. Its intelli-
gence in Europe focused on technical naval matters. Edwardian diplomats
had fewer intelligence triumphs than Victorian ones and less appreciation
of what it could provide; here, Salisbury had no successors. While happy to
use intelligence, diplomats aimed to avoid collecting it, a change in atti-
tude stemming from the professionalisation of intelligence and diplomacy.
190 J.R. Ferris
Diplomats agreed that consuls could collect intelligence in war, and
through their usual sources, local detectives and businessmen, but many
were reluctant to let them do so in peacetime.56 As PUS, even Hardinge
wrote, ‘the paid agents of the Admiralty should do such work’. Comment-
ing on the case of Colonel Redl, the next PUS, Arthur Nicolson, noted ‘the
whole of this spy system is abhorrent, although no doubt it may be neces-
sary to maintain it’.57 Edwardians also stole fewer documents from foreign
governments than Victorians had done.
Between 1870 and 1914, British intelligence was mediocre in Europe
and excellent in the rest of the world. It stood in the middle of the pack
on diplomatic matters, where powers under threat did better than leading
ones. It was beneath the standard of Austria and France, which feasted on
its weak codes, while Russia led the world in this practice and political
warfare. In military intelligence and contra-espionage, Britain was strong.
This was the one area of operational staff work where it matched France
and Germany, aided by experience in small wars and the reconstruction of
order of battle, and the creation of capabilities for aerial reconnaissance
and signals intelligence. No state matched it in collecting and assessing
strategic information. British intelligence was useless to policy during the
July crisis, but well prepared for the Great War, its greatest test.
In 1914, modes of intelligence crashed into each other. Acting in the
Victorian tradition, consuls, colonial officials and army and navy officers
handled most human intelligence, augmented by systems with tangled
lines. India did as it wished in Asia, as soldiers did near every front and the
NID everywhere. Canadian security, MI5, MI1c, the NID and the CID, all
handled intelligence in the US. Ultimately, these problems were sur-
mounted. Never before 1914, had even fifty Britons worked full time in
intelligence at any time. In 1918, 20,000 did so (and perhaps only 60,000
in 1944). Britain built huge intelligence bureaucracies with unprece-
dented power in collection and assessment. It led the world in code-break-
ing, as the world entered the second great age of communications
intelligence. Imperial agencies in the US cooperated to block German
threats and used them to build alliances with American officials. William
Wiseman, MI1c’s chief in Washington, became advisor to Woodrow
Wilson. MI5 and the CID walled Britain and India from their enemies.
Strategic intelligence was central to the success of blockade and to polit-
ical warfare, attempted on a heroic scale, with mixed results. Propaganda
aided British policy in the US, as did millions of pounds of secret service
spending in Persia and Arabia. Bribery, however, failed in Bulgaria and
Turkey. The British Army matched anyone in operational intelligence,
while Room 40 multiplied the numerical strength of the RN, aiding stra-
tegic success at sea. British intelligence had failures, especially its inability
to help naval operations, while its enemies exploited their superiority in
the field over Russia. Still, Britain beat Germany in their intelligence
struggle. By making blockade work without alienating Washington, and by
 Tradition and system 191
influencing American elite and public opinion through censorship, pro-
paganda and the Zimmerman Telegram, intelligence eased, and may have
been essential, to British victory.58
Between 1919 and 1939, believing Britain confronted major threats,
statesmen relied far more on intelligence than ever before in peacetime.59
Collection and assessment became bureaucratised, uniquely civilian, cen-
tralised and interdepartmental, and harnessed to information processing.
Demand and supply grew. Agencies which had emerged before 1914
became permanent, nailed to each other and the old tradition in a ram-
shackle way, as statesmen tried to combine centralised and decentralised
approaches. The personalised mode of ad hoc organisations collecting
material on a narrow range of issues which went directly to decision
makers at the top was replaced by specialised and general purpose agen-
cies, reporting on everything all the time, especially the Government Code
& Cypher School (GC&CS) and SIS, with perhaps 200 and sixty people,
respectively, in 1938. This material was no longer analysed primarily by
statesman but by military intelligence and the regional sections of the FO.
The latter loosely controlled the SIS and the GC&CS, while the fighting
services had smaller agencies, as did the Dominions and India. Though
they collected more material on Europe than other continents, their
primary focus was imperial security – in 1929, 10 per cent of imperial
secret service funds were allocated to control tribes in Iraq and the North-
west frontier60 – closely followed by diplomacy, with military intelligence in
the rear, a costly handicap in 1939–41.
This system worked best with signals intelligence, little practiced before
1914 and without old baggage. The GC&CS and agencies of the Domin-
ions, India, and the military services coordinated interception and crypt-
analysis as well as any other state. In the 1920s, they led the world in
code-breaking and ranked among the best practitioners of 1938. Still,
resources were scarce, mistakes common and code-breaking against cable
traffic became divided from wireless intelligence. These problems caused
dangers in 1939–41, which Britain barely surmounted, aided by Poland
and a remarkable ability to innovate.
Greater problems emerged in human intelligence and security. The SIS
led the former, covered by the Passport Control Service, a consular
branch retained, so passport fees could augment the secret service fund.
Yet, older traditions of intelligence persisted. PUS ran their networks, like
Robert Vansittart’s ‘private detective’ agency. In Persia, Military Attachés
ran spies until 1930; in China, SIS officers worked under consular cover.
When seeking sources, officers turned to British businesses, forming part-
nerships with some, like the Anglo Petroleum Oil Corporation (APOC).
When contemplating an SIS service in Iraq, an RAF officer noted,

I cannot see the difficulty about cover, if it does not suit to make one a
Military Attaché and the other an Air Force liaison officer or Imperial
192 J.R. Ferris
Airways official, surely you can work them in as assistant Consuls or
assistant political residents, missionaries, doctors working out some
special thesis, archaeologists, or concession hunters of some kind even
if the APOC or some other British firm cannot provide it.

The head of that system controlled some agents through a local British
businessman.61 SIS’s fallback ‘Z’ network of the 1930s also worked through
commercial links. SIS used British firms or fishermen to collect intelli-
gence throughout the Cold War.
After 1918, fearing subversion by many internal and external enemies,
Britain relied more than ever before on security services, which shaped
British and imperial politics. MI5, focused on military security, and Special
Branch, addressing political threats, were joined in 1929 under the Home
Office, but every possession maintained its own service. That in India,
perhaps the best in the empire, was well integrated with imperial intelli-
gence. Otherwise, throughout Asia, intelligence and security were badly
coordinated. Officials recognised the need, as one Indian Secretary wrote,
for ‘a system of inter-connected Intelligence organisations effectively cov-
ering the whole area from Shanghai to the Middle East’, but instead,
created a series of overcommitted and underpowered, agencies which
failed dismally in 1940–1.62
Britain, wounded but formidable, was the bulwark of the status quo. Its
interests remained imperial, which suited its power and intelligence.
Despite a weakened hand, it played that game well until 1939. Alas, it also
had to learn a new one, where it had to play to its weaknesses and could
not use its strengths. In Europe, compared with the norm of 1815–1914,
less power backed the status quo, more challenged it, and constant British
management and support was needed to prevent meltdown. These con-
ditions would have tested Britain at the peak of its power. They also
denied it as one of its strongest cards since 1715, the ability simply to
ignore great changes in Europe. Any such change must threaten its vital
interests and many minor ones. Its power and intelligence were not well
matched to this task. The status quo, stable until 1930 but then increas-
ingly fragile, broke because of the revisionist’s tactical daring and strategic
recklessness, the timidity and divisions of status quo powers, and errors in
every capital. Unlike the case before 1914, British intelligence was
intended to address the issues which caused this collapse. It had mixed
success.63 In the 1920s, Britain was strong and its intelligence good, the
best on earth. It could see the cards in its rival’s hands, after having picked
the game. Code-breaking was its best source, backed by the SIS, which
treated agents as a delivery system for stolen documents. It defined agents
by that matter, with ‘A.1’ meaning the source had proven reliable and had
access to high-level documents, some of which his controller had seen in
the original. From 1933, however, power shifted, threats emerged, and
Britain was thrown on the defensive while trying to reshape the status quo.
 Tradition and system 193
It did so badly. A reactive power needs better intelligence than a strong
and active one – so to understand what is happening, what to do and how
it must be right on more things. It must know the active power’s inten-
tions, the latter merely its own mind. This situation breeds uncertainty
and worst case planning, doubly so when statesmen are second raters.
Between 1933 and 1939, Britain needed great intelligence. What it
received merely was good, at the top of the league table, but unsure on
the intentions of the revisionist leaders, and most weak in Central Europe,
the key battlefield of 1937–9. Ultimately, however, power, policy and
leadership, not intelligence, caused British strategy to fail.
So too for its success in the Second World War. The role of British intelli-
gence in that victory has been oversold.64 Granted, it led the world in key
modes of collection and analysis, which revolutionised intelligence. Ultra
and Fortitude are justly renowned. Yet, during 1939–41, when Britain was
most in peril, its intelligence was no better or more useful than its enemies.
When that achieved maturity and superiority around 1942, the tide of
material strength also turned heavily in favour of the Allies. Intelligence
neither staved off disaster nor turned the tide, though afterwards it did cut
the length and cost of victory. Britain was better in intelligence than any
other power ever had been. Yet, that aided it against Hitler no more than
Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhelm – which, of course, means it mattered. So too,
intelligence remained an area of relative British advantage in the Cold War.
Britain remained the senior member in the Anglo-American intelligence
alliance until 1952, on par until 1959, and helped the US achieve excel-
lence. Until the end of empire, Britain’s main intelligence concerns
remained imperial. It retained a world focus when Britain lost world power.
Intelligence multiplied British power but could not prevent its subtraction.
Between 1715 and 1945, intelligence was driven by threat, particularly of
an internal–external challenge to the regime. The eighteenth-century
system, resting on a few specialised collectors, with assessment person-
alised, was a normal European one applied to unique circumstances. It was
simple, strong, centralised in Europe and regionalised elsewhere. In the
nineteenth century, Britain, the only world power, had a unique approach
to these issues. It collected and processed information with more centrali-
sation and power than before, and intelligence with less. Britain focused
on the world, rather than Europe, with assessment but not collection
handled by specialists. Its system between 1900 and 1956 was strong and
singular, with many large and specialised collection and assessment bodies,
focused on the world, with Europe its most important region. Except in the
Victorian era, intelligence was centrally directed and coordinated, code-
breaking was the greatest source, internal security the primary concern,
and political warfare a leading tool of policy. Throughout, Britain made
mistakes yet usually did well at intelligence, more often than any other
state did. This relative British advantage was central to its strategy under
the old world order.
194 J.R. Ferris
Notes
1 Paul S. Fritz, ‘The Anti-Jacobite Intelligence System of the English Ministers,
1715–1745’, The Historical Journal, 16 (1973): 265–89; Kenneth Ellis, The Post
Office in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1958), ch. 6.
2 L.G. Wickham Legg, British Diplomatic Instructions, 1689–1789, Volume VI, France,
1727–1744, Camden Third Series, Vol. XLIII (London, 1930), 224; cf. Oscar
Browning (ed.), Despatches from Paris, 1784–1790, Volume 1 (1784–1790),
Camden Third Series, Vol. XVI (London, 1909), 99.
3 Frank Spencer (ed.), The Fourth Earl of Sandwich, Diplomatic Correspondence,
1763–1765 (Manchester, 1961), 105–7; Report of the Manuscripts of J.B. Fortescue,
Esq., Preserved at Dropmore, Volume IV (London), 208; D.B. Horn, The British
Diplomatic Service, 1689–1789 (Oxford, 1961), 259–83; Alfred Cobban, Ambas-
sadors and Secret Agents, the Diplomacy of the First Earl of Malmesbury at the Hague
(London, 1954).
4 For a useful account, cf. J.D. Alsop, ‘British Intelligence for the North Atlantic
Theatre in the War of Spanish Succession’, Mariner’s Mirror, 77 (1991): 113–18.
5 Report of the Manuscripts of J.B. Fortescue, Esq., Preserved at Dropmore, Volume III
(London, 1899), 369.
6 Elizabeth Sparrow, Secret Service: British Agents in France, 1792–1815 (London,
1999); Huw Davies, ‘British Intelligence in the Peninsular War’, PhD Disserta-
tion, The University of Exeter, 2005.
7 Minute by ‘LH’, 13.3.21, FO 360/2.
8 Davies, ‘British Intelligence’, passim; Mark Urban, The Man Who Broke
Napoleon’s Codes (London, 2002).
9 Michael Duffy, ‘British Naval Intelligence and Bonaparte’s Egyptian Expedi-
tion of 1789’, Mariner’s Mirror, 84 (1998): 279–91; Andrew Lambert, Nelson, Bri-
tannia’s God of War (London, 2004), 33.
10 Planta to Granville, 21.12.24, 25.3.1825, PRO 30/29/14/3, Backhouse to
Granville, 18.6.33, PRO 30/29/14/7, Granville to Palmerston, 9.11.1835, PRO
30/29/14/7; PRO 30/29/6/8, passim.
11 Clive Emsley, ‘The Home Office and Its Sources of Information and Investiga-
tion’, The English Historical Review, 94 (1979): 532–61, and ‘Repression, “Terror”
and the Rule of Law in England During the Decade of the French Revolution’,
The English Historical Review, 100 (1985): 801–25; Bernard Porter, Plots and Para-
noia, a History of Political Espionage in Britain, 1790–1988 (London, 1989), 24–88.
12 Home Office to General Post Office, 7.4.17, passim, HO 79/3; cf. HO 32/20,
HO 151/7.
13 Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century, Appendix 4; Emiliana P. Noether,
‘ “Morally Wrong” or “Politically Right”? Espionage in Her Majesty’s Post
Office, 1844–45’, The Canadian Journal of History, 22 (1987): 41–54; John Ferris,
‘Before Room 40: The British Empire and Signals Intelligence, 1989–1914’,
The Journal of Strategic Studies, 12 (1989).
14 Christopher Andrew, Secret Service, 137, passim.
15 Herbert Maxwell, The Life and Letters of George William Frederick Fourth Earl of
Clarendon, K.G., G.C.B., Volume II (London, 1913), 282.
16 Elizabeth Malcolm, ‘Investigating the “Machinery of Murder”: Irish Detectives
and Agrarian Outrages, 1847–70’, New Hibernia Review, 6 (2002): 73–91; Stefan
Petrow, ‘The Rise of the Detective in London, 1869–1914’, Criminal Justice
History, 14 (1993): 91–108; Porter, Plots and Paranoia, 81–120, passim.
17 For examples, cf. Lord Cromer’s correspondence for the 1880s in FO 633/5.
18 Layard to Tenterden, 24.10.77, FO 363/2.
19 Thornton to Tenterden, 23.12.79, FO 363/4; Lyons to Tenterden, 25.10.81, FO
363/2; Harcourt to Tenterden, nd, circa 10.81, FO 363/1.
 Tradition and system 195
20 Hardinge to Bertie, 20.10.01, 28.11.01; Hardinge to Spring Rice, 28.3.06;
Hardinge MSS, Vol. 3, Cambridge University Library.
21 Lascelles to Tenterden, 18.5.80, FO 363/1.
22 Clarendon to Palmerston, 28.2.56, 7.3.56, The Oriental Question, 1840–1900,
Files from the Royal Archives, Windsor, UPA, Reel 20.
23 Loftus to Russell, 22.2.63, No 92, Most Confidential, ibid.
24 John Ferris, ‘Lord Salisbury, Secret Intelligence and British Policy Towards
Russia and Central Asia, 1874–1878’, in John Ferris, Intelligence and Strategy,
Selected Essays (London, 2005), 8–44.
25 White to Salisbury, 10.10.85, 16.7.87, FO 364/1; Military Attaché to Minister,
Constantinople, 10.4.08, FO 195/2290; Samson to Lowther, 11.2.10, passim,
FO 195/2335; HD 3/77, passim.
26 Arthur Wellesley Wellington, Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field
Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellingtom, K.G., Second Series, Vol. V (London, 1873),
248; Horne to Tenterden, 18.11.76, FO 363/5.
27 Brussels Embassy to Antwerp Legation, 29.4.55, 20.11.55, 22.11.55, 7.3.85, FO
616/13.
28 Currie to Law, 12.5.90, passim, FO 95/775.
29 Lamb to Clanwilliam, 24.3.1821, FO 360/2; Robert Franklin, ‘Charles Stuart
and the Secret Service’, The Rothschild Archive Review of the Year April
2000–March 2001 (London, 2001).
30 Unsigned memo, in Simmonds handwriting, Inspector General of Fortifica-
tions, circa 7.77, FO 358/2.
31 Secret Committee to Governors of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, 2.3.1830, De
Gyfford papers, F. 213/31, India Office Records Library (IORL), British
Library; John Martineau, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Sir Bartle
Frere, Vol. 1 (London, 1895), 135–6.
32 John Ferris, ‘Penny Dreadful Literature: Britain, India and the Collection of
Strategic Intelligence on Russia, 1825–1947’, The Fourth International Conference
on Intelligence and Military Operations, The US Army War College, May 1989.
33 Sanderson to Pauncefoot, 23.12.99, passim, FO 281/34.
34 Pinkerton to Sherwood, 9.12.14, 12.12.14, Box 8, Pinkerton National Detective
Agency papers, Library of Congress, Washington; cf. ‘Agency History, Forgery-
Bank of England Notes’, Box 70, ibid.
35 Stephen Harris, British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War (London, 1999).
36 Lt. Col. F.S. Roberts, QMG, 22.3.73, ‘Proposal for an Intelligence Branch to be
Attached to Quartermaster Genl.’s Dept.’; Captain Collen, 17.6.76, ‘Memoran-
dum on the Formation of an Intelligence Branch, Quartermaster General’s
Department, India’, L/MIL 7/7793.
37 Departmental Minute, 1.11.82, ‘Report on Collecting and Recording Naval
Information’, ADM 1/6772.
38 Ewan MacGregor, 1.87, ‘Instructions for the Director of Naval Intelligence’,
ADM 1/6868A.
39 The best account of British military intelligence during the later nineteenth
century is William Carpenter Beaver 11, ‘The Development of the Intelligence
Division and Its Role in Aspects of Imperial Decision Making, 1854–1901’, PhD
dissertation, Oxford University, 1976, and Thomas G. Fergusson, British Military
Intelligence, 1870–1914, The Development of a Modern Intelligence Organisation
(London, 1984).
40 Minute by Simpson, 14.11.88, ADM 1/6999; Foreign Intelligence Committee,
Secretary’s Procedure and Memorandum Book, 1885, Greene Papers, National
Maritime Museum, Greenwich; minute by Custance, 4.1.89, ADM 1/6992.
41 Ibid; Memorandum by Cyprian Bridge, DNI, ‘Summary of the Annual Report
of the Naval Intelligence Department for 1888’, nd, ADM 231/15; Hardinge to
196 J.R. Ferris
Sanderson, 26.6.02, Hardinge MSS, Vol. 26; Robert Mullins, ‘New Ways of
Thinking: The Intelligence Function and Strategic Calculations in the Admi-
ralty, 1882–1889’, Intelligence and National Security, 15 (2000): 77–97; and
Matthew Allen, ‘Rear Admiral Reginald Custance: Director of Naval Intelli-
gence, 1899–1902’, Mariner’s Mirror, 78 (1992): 61–75.
42 Chapman to Elles, 25.11.92, WO 106/1.
43 Chapman to Elles, 4.1.93, WO 106/1.
44 Ferris, ‘Penny Dreadful Literature’, passim.
45 J.A. Cole, Prince of Spies, Henry Le Caron (London, 1984).
46 Surveillance material on Dalip Singh is contained in R/1/1/62, 65–7, 77, 79,
82, 90, 93.
47 Durand to Jago, 27.7.88, R/1/1/98.
48 FO 95/775, passim; cf. ADM 121/73.
49 Ferris, ‘Penny Dreadful Literature’, passim.
50 Morley to Minto, 21.5.08, Morley Papers, Vol. 3, D. 573.
51 Ewart to Churchill, 27.4.10, HO 317/44; undated memoir by William Melville,
KV 1/8; Ferris, ‘Before Room 40’, passim.
52 Andrew, Secret Service, passim; Ferris, ‘Before Room 40’, passim; Richard
Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, British Intelligence and the Defence of
the Indian Empire, 1904–1924 (London, 1995); John Chapman, ‘British Intelli-
gence, 1900–1914’, War and History, 1.02: 60–81.
53 Untitled memo by Rodd, Stockholm, 28.10.05, HD 3/128.
54 ‘Secret Reports by Commander Sir A. Trevor Dawson, R.N., to Admiralty
1906–1914, as a Result of Visits Made to Continent at Request of First Lord of
the Admiralty and as Collected Through Special Agencies’, MISC 73/1098,
Imperial War Museum; Inglesfield to Baddeley, 10.10.09, ADM 116/940 B.
55 Memorandum by MID, ‘SS in the Event of a European War’, circa 5.03, HD
3/124 Part 1.
56 Rodd to Sanderson, 28.10.03, 3/05, Memorandum by Law, ‘Proposals for Intel-
ligence Organisation’; HD 3/125 Part 1; ‘Separate Memo’ and untitled memo
by Johnston, 17.10.05, HD 3/128; Minute by Drogheda, 14.10.12, 42972, FO
371/ 1557.
57 Undated minute by Hardinge, but May 1909 by internal evidence, passim, FO
371/673; cf. 42972, passim, FO 371/1537; Morley to Minto, 31.12.1908, Morley
papers, Vol. 3, D.573/3; Nicolson to Cartwright, 24.6.13, FO 800/367.
58 John Ferris, ‘ “Now that the Milk Is Spilt”: Appeasement and the Archive on
Intelligence’, in B.J.C. McKercher (ed.), Appeasement Reappraised (Cambridge,
2005), and ‘The Road to Bletchley Park: The British Experience with Signals
Intelligence, 1890–1945’, Intelligence and National Security, 16 (2002): 53–84.
59 Ibid.
60 Minutes by AI, 21.12.26, 10.1.27, AIR 2/1196 S. 25865; Appendix to Finance
Department, 14.1.31, R/1/4/1028.
61 Dent to Carmichael, 4,11.27, AIR 23/433; Gerald Wheeler papers, typescript
mss., Fifty Years in Asia, 152–3, Middle East Centre Archives, St. Antony’s
College, Oxford.
62 Zetland to Linlithgow, 27.6.39, Linlithgow MSS F 125/7, IORL.
63 For longer assessments, cf. John Ferris, ‘Image and Accident: Intelligence and
the Origins of the Second World War’, in Intelligence and Strategy, Selected Essays,
passim, and ‘Now that the Milk Is Spilt’, passim.
64 For discussions, cf. John Ferris, ‘The British Enigma: Britain, Signals Security
and Cipher Machines, 1906–1953’, in Intelligence and Strategy, Selected Essays,
138–80, passim, and ‘Ralph Bennett and the State of Intelligence History: A
Review Article’, Intelligence and National Security (1991).
10 The empire that prays together
stays together
Imperial defence and religion,
1857–1956
A. Hamish Ion

Religion provided much of the colour, pageant and spectacle of the

British Empire as well as its sounds and smells, through its church,
mosque and temple bells and gongs, chants, dances, festivals, incense,
music, pilgrimages, processions and rites of passage. Many in the Empire
in the century after 1857 might have been indifferent to religion.
However, few among its multi-million inhabitants from the Queen-
Empress and Defender of the Faith at its apex to the frosty little Eskimo in
the higher Arctic or the heated wizened Pundit in the lower Bengal could
avoid contact with it. Yet, religion was always a subordinate issue in imper-
ial defence. Nonetheless, the undertone of religion echoed right to the
economic, military, political and cultural chambers of imperial defence’s
heart. Usually, it lay subcutaneously dormant beneath the surface of colo-
nial society until bitten into, as happened in the Indian Mutiny that burst
out in 1857. Moreover, religion was often been used as a convenient
scapegoat for imperial difficulties, by providing a simplistic shorthand
explanation to obfuscate very complex issues at the core of the confronta-
tions between the ruler and the ruled, for religion was usually intertwined
with other potentially explosive imperial issues of which race, culture and
language are three of the more obvious.
Indeed, there were few questions and problems in imperial affairs,
including matters of imperial defence, in which religious issues do not play
some part, albeit at times only a small one. Religion has resonated in Irish
affairs within and without the Pale from the Reformation onwards, its neigh
whinnied within a mutinous Curragh nearly 400 years afterwards, and still
its castrato echo reverberates against the forlorn rows of pews and confes-
sionals in which a divided people are harangued from the pulpit to differ-
ent unions before their Sunday dinners. The obvious strategic and
geographical importance of Ireland to the defence of Britain has led many
British enemies to exploit the religious animosity between Roman Catholics
and Protestants in the emerald isle as one of the ways to bring about
Britain’s discomfort, if not downfall. However, religion did not prevent
Irishmen, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, from forming a large pro-
portion of soldiers in the British Army during the nineteenth century. In
198 A.H. Ion
itself, this indicated that the desire for employment, pay and food could
take precedence over religious-inspired hostility. It was Britain’s luck that
military service helped to blunt a religious problem with dangerous political
ramifications that existed in the wider Irish civil society. Nevertheless, reli-
gious motivations have contributed to the wellspring of action that has led
to political protest and independence movements not only in Ireland but
also in southern Africa and many other parts within the British Empire and
to countless wars against the British on the imperial frontiers. Among the
attempts, for instance, to explain the origins of the Indian Mutiny was the
widespread accusation that it was a direct result of Christian missionaries
being allowed into India.1 On a lesser scale, British disdain of fetishism or
ju-ju, based on the worship of the spirits of ancestors, can be seen as one of
the contributing factor to the Benin War of 1897.2 This paper sets out to
illuminate the problem of how religion impinged on imperial defence and
how it was used to help to maintain the integrity of the Empire. This is an
enormous topic, and space constraints mean that this essay will concentrate
only on three aspects of religion and imperial defence: as a manifestation of
soft power, as a necessary element of hard power and as a tool of political
power. Moreover, so rich are the examples that can be used to illustrate
these themes that this short paper will largely eschew the questions of reli-
gion and imperial defence in the settler colonies and White Dominions in
favour of evidence drawn from Africa and South Asia.
Christianity (the religion of the majority of the British) can be viewed
conceptually as soft power. It was part of an arsenal of governmental,
parliamentary, legal, cultural and sporting institutions, which projected the
civilizing mission of the imperial power by utilizing moral suasion rather
than military force or the economic power of trade to convince colonial
peoples of the benefits and desirability of British overlordship. This mani-
fested itself in the schools, hospitals, leprosia and social welfare institutions
that were supported by British religious groups overseas. As well as serving
a role in the Empire overseas, Christianity was also an influence in the edu-
cation of many of those who, after matriculating from Church-founded
public schools or universities in Britain or their counterparts in the
Empire, went on to serve as soldiers and colonial administrators in Africa,
Asia, Australasia, the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere.
As well as soft power, religion can be seen as being an essential part of
hard power, particularly in terms of recruiting into the military and the
maintenance of morale within fighting units. Christian chaplains served
with British and Dominion forces overseas, and many units like the
Cameroonians, the famous Lowland regiment, had strong religious affilia-
tions dating from their original raising. During the First World War, espe-
cially, Christian Churches both at home and in the Empire played a
significant role in convincing young Christians to join the colours.
However, Christian soldiers were only one part of the military forces of the
British Empire. The Empire enclosed within its boundaries and confronted
 The empire that prays together stays together 199
in its expansion a plethora of different religions. Ronald Hyam has pointed
out that much of the periphery of Empire was occupied by Islam and
engagement with Islam was a common preoccupation not only for the
British in Africa and India but also for many other European empires
including the Russians in Central Asia, the Dutch in the East Indies and
the Americans in the Philippines.3
Yet, much of the hard power of British military strength depended on
the British ability to recruit Muslims and other religionists into its local
levies who were responsible for the normal internal defence of colonies
and protectorates controlled by the civil authorities. While the Royal
Navy (RN), Army and Royal Air Force (RAF) retained the ultimate
responsibility for the defence of British territories overseas, the role of
the British regular forces after 1895, except under unusual circum-
stances, was largely confined to being employed to defend maritime
fortresses and coaling stations. Very often, these local forces were paid for
out of locally raised taxes at no cost to the taxpayer in metropolitan
Britain.4 It has been argued that from the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, India
and the Indian Army became indispensable to Britain.5 The reason is
clear from a remark that Lord Salisbury is reputed to have said in 1882
about India that it was ‘an English barrack in the Oriental seas from
which we may draw any number of troops without paying for them’.6
While India might be regarded as the jewel in the imperial crown, its role
was much more than decorative for it provided Britain with substantial
military resources. The Indian taxpayer paid for not only the Indian
Army which sent troops to promote and defend the British Empire from
the Middle East to China, from Africa to the Pacific but also the support
of British Army units stationed in India. Even so, the defence of India
added greatly to Britain’s military burden, at least in terms of European
military manpower deployed there. Yet, without India, the final fabric of
the British Empire would not have otherwise been fashioned or main-
tained. While Indian troops played an important role in the small wars
that were fought in Africa and Asia, it was during both the First and
Second World Wars in many theatres of war that the Indian Army and
India’s resources were decisive for Britain’s success. The success of the
British in managing the religious issue in the Empire with its often ethnic
and linguistic linkages to their advantage can be seen in the rainbow
spectrum of religions and races that made up Slim’s troops in the 14th
Army fighting the Japanese in Burma during the Second World War.
As well as being an element in hard military power, religion was one tool
to be found in the Pandora’s Box labelled ‘divide and rule’ which the impe-
rial founders and guardians often opened and took out to employ. Winston
Churchill is reputed to have said the ‘Hindu–Muslim feud [was] the
bulwark of British rule in India’.7 As was the case in India, the issue of reli-
gion was often intertwined with ethnicity and race. J. R. Seeley, the nine-
teenth century historian, for instance, described the Papineau Rebellion in
200 A.H. Ion
Lower Canada in 1838 as ‘the convulsion of despair of a sinking
nationality’.8 The racial concerns of French Canadian nationalism are seen
to be primary in a rebellion in which a religious subtext of Roman Catholic
against Protestant can also be detected. The influence of the Roman
Catholic Church on society and politics in French Canada during the nine-
teenth and first half of the twentieth century was clearly significant. The
Roman Catholic clergy used the pulpit to support the cause of the federal-
ists in Lower Canada at the time of Canadian Confederation in 1867 and to
oppose the federal government over conscription in 1917 and 1944. It took
a Quiet Revolution in Quebec society and politics beginning in the 1950s to
weaken the Roman Catholic Church’s influence in that province.
Although the religious factor might play a subordinate role, it still was
present in colonial and imperial affairs in those communities in which
there was neither a common nationality nor religion but only common
interest to help bind them together. Ever since the Durham Report of
1839 on Canada, the British have placed great faith in federal institutions
(perhaps because they themselves do not have any direct experience of
them). Federal institutions were seen in Canada as a means to create a
sense of community that otherwise would not exist. With varying degrees
of success or outright failure, the federal solution was attempted by the
British in the Caribbean, in Central Africa and in Southeast Asia as well as
Canada. In India, a federal solution was also contemplated as the Govern-
ment of India Act of 1935 shows. It was the Second World War and the
National Congress Party’s reaction to it that provoked Muslim League
to advocate partition. Federation in the Indian case floundered on the
issue of religion.
The question of religion in imperial defence was not simply just a
matter of ‘An’ then comes up the Regiment an’ pokes the ‘eathen out’.9
While, on occasion, there was little alternative but to teach the heathen a
military lesson, mostly there was a realization that the religions within the
British Empire had to be placated, manipulated, managed and controlled
so that they would not serve to provide one of the sparks that set off a cata-
clysmic explosion such as that occurred in India with the Mutiny. Further-
more, Christianity was seen by many as having a civilizing influence on the
peoples of the Empire. We turn now to investigate religion as an aspect of
soft power.

I
In the context of British imperialism, religion is normally considered in
terms of Christian missions and empire.10 Even with this approach, the
immediate difficulty for the historian is that the impact of Christianity and
the response of indigenous peoples and their traditional religions and cul-
tures to it varied widely with virtually all regions in the Empire having dif-
ferent experiences and reactions to it. Christianity was seen as the religion
 The empire that prays together stays together 201
of the British imperialists and British missionaries often regarded as the
religious agents of colonialism and Christianity. Indeed, during the 1870s,
even the first Anglican African bishop in West Africa, Samuel Adjai
Crowther, clearly acted and was treated as an unofficial consul for the
British on the lower Niger. The Empire provided the atmosphere in which
the quasi-establishment of the Christian religion could be contemplated.
In 1895, Lord Rosebery underlined the importance of the missionary
movement within his definition of liberal imperialism by suggesting that
the development of the missionary enterprise was the fourth of the five
elements implied by the term.11 Given the wide acceptance of the mission-
ary endeavour as a legitimate part of the imperial effort, it should be no
surprise that in many colonies in Africa and the West Indies, it was not
unusual for the local Anglican bishop, in the days when a diocese paral-
leled the extent of the colonial territory, to be accorded a position of pres-
tige in the religious sphere comparable to that of the Governor in the
political realm.12 Moreover, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, many Anglican missionaries came from a similar social and edu-
cational background to the colonial administrators and often had family
connections not only to officers in the armed forces but also to politicians
at home. It was not always the Church of England that served as the quasi-
established church; in Nyasaland (present day Malawi), for instance, this
role was held by the Church of Scotland. Missionaries were not, however,
a homogeneous group, and it is as difficult to generalize about their atti-
tudes towards colonialism as it is about the responses of those who they
aimed to convert to Christianity.
Certainly, Christian missions cannot be overlooked in terms of imperial
defence, for in littoral Africa, in insular Melanesia and, especially, in
riverain China, protection of missionaries became an irksome, if also
unwanted, task for the RN and Army. This was seen as part of imperial
duties that were conceived of in terms of local defence requirements such
as the problems posed by Chinese piracy, African slavery, Polynesian
blackbirding and diplomatic visiting. At times, the exuberance of young
naval officers in demanding satisfactory reciprocation for outrages com-
mitted against missionaries might embarrass the government in Westmin-
ster. This was true with the attack by the gunboat, HMS Algerine, on the
Anping forts guarding Tainan in 1868 in response to Chinese harassment
of English Presbyterian missionaries and merchants. Nevertheless, when
the British government itself faced a crisis, it was not loath in appealing to
the patriotism of missionaries to offer their special cultural or linguistic
knowledge to assist the government as was the case with missionaries in
China, Japan and Korea who joined the officer ranks of the Chinese
Labour Corps during the First World War. Furthermore, many missionary
children, of whom Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, the son of a
sometime missionary bishop of Tasmania and long-time secretary of
Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG), is the
202 A.H. Ion
most famous, made a contribution to imperial defence by serving in the
armed forces.
Members of the armed forces also sometimes participated in support-
ing the missionary movement. So, often willing to contribute to charitable
and humanitarian endeavours, RN personnel helped to start and to
support Christian missions such as the Loochoo Naval Mission at Naha,
the capital of the Ryukyu Islands, in the late 1840s and early 1850s and the
English Church Mission in Korea founded in 1889 by Bishop Charles
Corfe, long-time naval chaplain and friend of Queen Victoria’s sailor son,
the Duke of Edinburgh. Yet, naval personnel could also look with a some-
what jaundiced eye on missionaries. Philip Colomb, the naval strategist
and intellectual, noted in 1873 in his memoirs of slave catching in the
Indian Ocean that ‘very few naval men can clear themselves from that
general prejudice against missions and missionaries which is decidedly
current in the service, and which, rightly or wrongly founded, sways our
general opinion’.13 Missionary work, however, was not restricted to non-
Christians. Few major ports in the Empire were without their Mission to
Seamen whose efforts were directed to help cater to the spirituals needs of
those in the merchant marine. Wherever there was an English-speaking
community, from the remote Bonin Islands to the rocky Labrador shore
and most places in between, a Christian priest could be found ready to
cater to the needs of locals and visitors. As this indicates, part of the mis-
sionary effort was channelled to help Britons overseas.
Whether it was to help Britons or to convert non-Christians to Chris-
tianity, it is patently evident, however, that the manifold activities of the
voluntary British missionary movement were supported by hundreds of
thousands of British people from every walk and station of life. Although
the major denominations in England and Scotland had virtually all
become involved in overseas missionary work during the nineteenth
century, if not earlier, the number of missionary societies remained barely
more than a handful until the last three decades of the century. During
that time, there was an exponential growth in missionary organizations
reflecting a wide array of different Christian theological and philan-
thropic interests as well as the energy of new groups such as the Student
Christian Movement and the Student Volunteer Missionary Union to
channel people and money into overseas missions. The presence of thou-
sands of missionaries in the towns and countryside throughout the Empire
undoubtedly had an influence on shaping British views of it. The enorm-
ous canon of literature and reports published in church magazines and
journals did constitute a major source of information about many parts of
the Empire. The missionary movement expanded as the onward mark of
British power generated the spread of British civilization. Its decline, as
the twentieth century progressed, can be taken as an early harbinger of
the declining national resources and flagging energy underpinning
Britain’s overseas endeavours.
 The empire that prays together stays together 203
The realm of ideas, especially religious ones, is not easily transmitted
across cultural divides as other aspects of a culture, such as sports,
fashion, food and drink, which are less culturally challenging. Indeed,
sports and missionary work often joined together as in the case of C. T.
Studd, the famous cricketer and member of the Cambridge Seven who
joined the China Inland Mission in 1885, Walter Weston of the Church
Missionary Society who introduced mountaineering as a leisure sport
into Japan, and Eric Liddell, the Flying Scotsman and Olympic runner,
who served as a London Missionary Society missionary in China until his
premature death while a prisoner of the Japanese during the Second
World War. Spreading Western elementary school education and
improving local health conditions was seen in the pioneering work of
Mary Slessor in the Calabar region of Nigeria during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. At approximately the same time, Hannah
Riddell of the Church Missionary Society won lasting national fame in
Japan as one of the major pioneers of the care and treatment of lepers
in that country. As teachers in mission schools and kindergartens, as spe-
cialized social workers, as medical doctors and nurses or as evangelists in
rural or urban settings, single women came to be the backbone of the
overseas missionary movement although their male clerical counterparts
tended to receive most of the attention.
In the early twentieth century, Bishop Henry Montgomery, the Field
Marshal’s father and missionary statesman, divided the non-Christian
races into three classes in which:

there are the intellectual nations with or without sacred books; the
races more or less civilised which possess vitality, and are increasing in
number; and, lastly, those who are not necessarily lower in civilisation,
but who seem to be dying out.14

The negative cultural implications of Christianity, for those parts of the

Empire with sophisticated traditional cultures (India is a prime example
and clearly in the first case), have had an immense impact on political,
social and religious developments in them. The response of India to
Christianity (or its perceived threat to Indian culture) led to a profound
Indian effort to restore, rejuvenate or re-invent political, social and reli-
gious forms from the beginning of the nineteenth century onwards.
Africa fell into Bishop Montgomery’s second case, and it was in different
parts of Africa that Montgomery felt two greatest tasks in Africa devolved
upon the two great Church of England missionary societies, Church Mis-
sionary Society (CMS) and the SPG. These tasks were: in the north, for the
CMS to fight Islam in the only region that Islam was growing by building a
string of mission stations from the Niger to Khartoum in order to stop the
southern advance of Islam; in the south, the SPG had ‘to help the Church
in South Africa to make the Bantu races into a Christian force, and to
204 A.H. Ion
prevent any of those racial struggles which are becoming so serious a
menace in the US’.15 To Montgomery, the racial problem in the US was far
more serious than the Irish or the Boer or the Indian question in the British
Empire. He saw, however, that it was the SPG and the Anglican Church’s
role to ameliorate racial tensions in South Africa. It is not surprising, there-
fore, to find either Trevor Huddleston, while serving as a priest in South
Africa in the 1950s being a leader in the anti-apartheid movement, or
Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop of Capetown who was greatly
influenced by Huddleston, playing such a large role in helping to amelio-
rate racial tensions in the late twentieth century South Africa. As Bishop of
Masasi during the early 1960s, Huddleston worked closely with Julius
Nyerere on the development of national independence for Tanzania.
Canon Max Warren, the long-time Secretary of the CMS, quoted Dennis
Osadebay, the founder of the Ibo State Union, as writing in 1947 that:

the missionary has made the African soil fertile for the growth of impe-
rialism . . . (but) he has equally helped to lay the foundations for the
present spirit of nationalism. . . . When African historians come to write
their own account of the adventure of Africa with imperialism, they will
write of the missionaries as the greatest friends the Africans had.16

The impact of the missionary movement, therefore, can be viewed as a

two-edged sword for both Britain as an imperial power and for the
indigenous nationalist. It is no wonder, then, the role of missionary move-
ment in the emergence of modern Africa can be controversial.
For Bishop Montgomery, in the early twentieth century, the third class
of non-Christians were those who belonged to races that supposedly were
dying out, and these were found in Melanesia, among the hill tribes of
India and the aborigines of Japan. The destruction of weaker cultures, like
those of the Canadian aboriginal First Nations or New Zealand Maoris,
remains a potent political issue to the present for governments and Chris-
tian Churches. The rapid success of Christian missionaries during the
1830s and 1840s in converting the majority of Maoris to Christianity has-
tened the decline of the traditional tribal society and contributed indi-
rectly to the Maori Wars of the mid-century. While the challenges to
missionary work might vary, as the nineteenth century progressed, a
common pattern of missionary work developed in order to combat the
problems of missionary work.
The inherent difficulties of direct evangelization and the minefields of
reciprocal misinterpretations and misunderstandings across cultural bound-
aries which could immediately confront the naïve preacher led the mission-
ary movement to put most effort into evangelistic work within a more
defined environment. By the mid-nineteenth century, the missionary move-
ment had placed its emphasis on education and training which resulted
in the building of churches, schools, hospitals and other specialized
 The empire that prays together stays together 205
institutions like leprosia and garden homes for tuberculosis sufferers. As
civilization was equated in the nineteenth century with European civil-
ization, it also meant that missionaries also attempted to inculcate Western
manners and behaviour into potential converts. The opportunities of
obtaining a Western-style education in mission schools attracted many
Africans and Asians who might, otherwise, have chosen to have no contact
with missionaries. The influence of Christian social thought has been
evident in the political ideas of post-independence African leaders such as
Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania who received
their early education in mission schools,17 but as the case of the Chinese
statesman, Zhou Enlai, revealed, attending a mission school does not
necessarily lead to a Christian result. Moreover, mission school education,
because it increased awareness of rights of people in the outside world,
could also serve as the breeding ground for those who might later argue
for political change or even independence. Kwame Nkrumah, the first
President of Ghana, received his early education at a Roman Catholic
school and later taught there. He drew support for the independence of
Ghana from ex-servicemen, journalists, elementary school teachers and lit-
erate people who had some primary school education, that is, people who
had often had a similar early exposure to Christian education. During the
late nineteenth century, for those who lived by the shores of Lake Nyasa on
the Calabar coast or in the hills of the Santal Parganas, the mission school
offered the only place where a Western-style education could be obtained.
Teaching provided missionaries (both male and female) with familiar
work conducted in a controlled atmosphere. An important pioneer
endeavour, which served as a model that others quickly emulated, was
made by Alexander Duff, a Church of Scotland missionary, who estab-
lished in Calcutta in the 1830s a higher education institution in which
English was the language of instruction with the aim of not only produc-
ing an educated Christian population but also of bringing the Christian
Gospel to the Indian intellectual elite who could hardly be reached any
other way.18 The missionary educational effort was not solely directed
towards the elite, for it also aimed to encourage literacy among ordinary
people so that they could read the Christian literature, which the British
and Foreign Bible Society helped to make available in a multitude of dif-
ferent languages. Other organizations looked to helping the poor and
deprived throughout the Empire and beyond; the social work of the Salva-
tion Army was extended from the slums of the East End of London to
those of the East End of Tokyo with few slums left untouched along the
imperial trade routes in-between. This modernizing strategy on the part of
missions was rooted in the belief that Western culture was superior to all
others and that European economic, social, and political organizations
should be taken as standards of civilization.
Some doubt, albeit largely fleeting, was cast outside of the missionary
world, however, about the assumption that subject races had the potential
206 A.H. Ion
to achieve civilization by the grisly events of the Indian Mutiny and the
1865 Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. By the late nineteenth century, the
spread of Darwinian and Spencerian evolutionary thought was providing
non-Christian religionists, already primed with traditional religious argu-
ments against Christianity, with new ammunition from Western sources to
criticize Christianity and the widely espoused view of Christians and mis-
sionaries that it was the essence of Western civilization. Further, growing
awareness of and the systematic study of other great religions such as Bud-
dhism, Hinduism and Islam, which was often stimulated by missionaries’
own efforts to try to understand the nature of the opposition of those reli-
gions to Christianity, contributed to sow doubt in the minds of some
Christians about the innate superiority of Christianity over other religions
and the necessity to convert non-Christians to it. At the turn of the
century, Lord George Curzon, the Viceroy of India, was one of those who
bitterly opposed those who thought that the only hope for Indians lay in
their conversion to Christianity and transformation into brown English-
men. Curzon felt that Indians should adhere to their own religions and ‘to
preserve what he called the “idiosyncrasies of native thought and custom”,
while encouraging Indians to assimilate Western ideas into their own
culture’.19 Christianity, however, was the religion of the British and,
despite the reservations of those like Curzon, as such was present wher-
ever the Union flag flew. A major blow to Christian prestige was self-
inflicted by the slaughter between civilized Christian nations during the
First World War, which naturally served to weaken the appeal of Christian-
ity as the religion of Western civilization for non-Christians.
Missionaries accepted the general idea of the British Empire as a provi-
dential force for good, although many were prepared to take issue with
imperial authorities when larger humanitarianism interests were compro-
mised. This was especially true in the West Indies, West and South Africa
and the Pacific Islands where missionaries sought to protect and enhance
native rights against planter, settler and trader interests in the years after
the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834. Once the abolition
of slavery had been achieved, Christian figures like Thomas Fowel Buxton
actively campaigned for a government-sponsored humanitarian develop-
ment expedition to the Niger River (which ultimately came to grief in
1842) that was aimed at regenerating West Africa, after its long devasta-
tion by the slave trade, through the development of a legitimate com-
merce in cotton and other agricultural products by independent Africans.
The humanitarian efforts and influence of evangelical missionaries in
India can also be seen in the reform campaigns to bring about an end to
sati (the ritual self-immolation by widows) and female infanticide.
Any such challenges were not taken into account when David
Livingstone, the famous Scottish missionary-explorer of Africa, addressed
a missionary meeting in the Senate House in Cambridge in December
1857. While Livingstone’s appeal led directly to the establishment of the
 The empire that prays together stays together 207
Universities Mission to Central Africa the next year, this meeting also
proved to be a turning point in the British public image of the missionary
and the overseas missionary endeavour from Britain, for it led to large
numbers of Oxbridge graduates being attracted to overseas missionary
work not only to Africa but also to all other parts of the world. The result
was the stock of missionary dramatically rose as the late nineteenth
century advanced. The death of Bishop Charles Frederick Mackenzie from
malaria while journeying on the Ruo River in 1862, the murder of Bishop
John Coleridge Patterson by Nukapu islanders of the Santa Cruz group in
1871 as well as Livingstone’s own death in 1873 provided mid-Victorians
with missionary heroes who sacrificed their lives for their Christian beliefs.
Livingstone was a complex and flawed figure whose legacy both as a mis-
sionary and as an explorer is controversial. He was fired by a belief that
opening up Africa to the twin benefits of legitimate commerce and Chris-
tianity was the most effective solution to the African slave trade and the
key to the continent’s material development.
Among the critics of this view was Philip Colomb of the RN. Colomb
saw that the packaging of Christianity and civilization had led to the disas-
ters of the early years of the Universities Mission to Central Africa.20
According to Colomb, the calamities that attended this mission’s early
efforts in central Africa also stemmed from the poor planning and
muddled thinking of missionaries and their enthusiastic supporters at
home in trying to establish a mission hundreds of miles from their supply
base on the coast; by missionaries taking sides in the tribal warfare that
surrounded them and because of the devastating effects of drought on
that part of central Africa into which the missionaries ventured. In
Colomb’s view, the slave trade and Arab slave traders were responsible for
very few of the problems that missionaries had to confront. Further, even
if missionaries were successful in bringing about the end of the slave
trade in central Africa, they needed to supply the freed slaves with the
means to earn a living which freedom alone could not provide. Colomb
felt that a civil mission could be launched into African territory with the
object of instituting settled government, just laws and the spread of prac-
tical knowledge among the indigenous population, but he also felt that
such a mission might have to maintain itself by force of arms. He saw that
Rajah Brooke’s settlement of Sarawak as a successful example of this; in
part, because Brooke did not sacrifice any part of his theory of govern-
ment when he was compelled to use warlike measure to preserve order.
Clearly, such a civil mission was primarily civilizing and secondarily reli-
gious, with its lay governor supreme and the missionary subordinate.
Colomb had never heard of a purely religious civil mission, such as had
been first proposed for the Universities Mission to Central Africa, ever
being successful ‘except perhaps in China, missions to barbarous
independent tribes become almost inevitably politico-religious, with the
evil results hinted at’.21
208 A.H. Ion
As well as commerce, civilization and Christianity, missionaries in some
cases saw that imperialism could bring protection. It could supply the
stability and law and order under which missions might better thrive. In
1875, Fiji became a Crown Colony at the urging of Wesleyan Methodist
Missionary Society missionaries; in 1884, southern Bechuanaland became
a protectorate at the urging of London Missionary Society missionaries; in
1889, Scottish missionaries belonging to the Free Church and Church of
Scotland supported the formation of a protectorate over Nyasaland; and
in 1894, Church Missionary Society missionaries and their supporters were
instrumental in the declaration of a full protectorate over Uganda. This
process was fulfilling what Colomb had earlier perceived that the prospect
of missions flourishing improved when the responsibility for law and
order was taken out of their hands and the missionary subordinate to the
lay governor.
In Nyasaland, the beginning of the series of separate expeditions and
campaigns that collectively form the so-called Slavers’ War between 1888
and 1896 caused by the clash of interest between the African Lakes
Company (whose originally shareholders were almost entirely supporters of
Scottish missions in Central Africa) and missionaries in Livingstonia Mission
and Yao tribe slaveraiding chiefs as Company and missionaries’ chiefs
pushed their influence north of Lake Nyasa towards Lake Tanganyika. The
security situation in Nyasaland led directly to the raising of the indigenous
tribesmen of Nyasaland as fighting troops leading to the formation of the
Central African Rifles (the predecessor of the famous King’s African Rifles).
Among the first troops raised were Atonga from the shores of Lake Nyasa.
This tribe had been long victimized by slavers and was coming under the
influence of the Livingstonia Mission. With the end of slavery and active
pacification efforts by the Central Africa Rifles, the Livingstonia Mission
enjoyed very considerable growth in number of converts through the 1890s.
Yet, resentment there was against the actions of the British that came to the
fore in Nyasaland with a bloody rising in 1915 led by John Chilembwe, an
African Baptist minister and advocate of a Christianity independent of mis-
sionaries, who protested at working conditions at the coffee plantation close
to his mission station and at the loss of life among African troops in the First
World War.
If the growth of Christianity in Nyasaland came with the establishment
of a British protectorate, which brought the Army and peace, religious
turmoil in Uganda also contributed to the establishment of a British pro-
tectorate there. The situation in Uganda was complicated not only by the
clash between Muslim and Christian interests but also by a division among
Christian missionaries between the British Protestant CMS representing
the evangelical wing of Church of England and the French Roman
Catholic White Fathers (Père Blancs) who believed that to be civilized was
to be French and Catholic. Religious rivalry of this sort was not unknown
elsewhere; Keith Sinclair has noted in the case of New Zealand in the
 The empire that prays together stays together 209
mid-nineteenth century that the bitter recrimination between Wesleyan
Methodist and CMS missionaries helped to vitiate Christian efforts to safe-
guard Maori interests.22 Yet, it was not only the two Protestant denomina-
tions who were vying to convert the Maori for the Roman Catholic
missionaries were also at work in New Zealand, and apparently the Maoris
‘greatly enjoyed’ the triangular theological controversy that arose between
the three Christian groups.23 In Uganda, the playing off of missionary
groups against each other was largely brought to an end when Sudanese
and local troops raised by Frederick Lugard, who had previously been
engaged in trying to stamp out the slave trade in Nyasaland before moving
north to Buganda at the end of 1890, were used by the Imperial British
East Africa Company to secure British interests and with it the Protestants
became the dominant religious faction. Yet, as Max Warren pointed out in
1967, ‘the Church-State settlement imposed by Captain Lugard in Buganda
in 1891 has remained for over seventy years a cause of unease’.24 Despite
the future religious problems that his actions might cause, Lugard con-
tinued on to further imperial adventures in Nigeria and West Africa includ-
ing helping to form the locally raised Rifles for service against the Ashanti
and to maintain the peace in Nigeria where Muslim and Christian spheres
met. These units were the predecessors of those West African forces that
distinguished themselves in the fighting in Burma during the Second
World War. In 1959, A. P. Thornton writing about the debate over the
expansion of empire in the 1880s pointed out that

many of those who objected vehemently to spirited policies of over-

seas expansion were strong humanitarians, and how humanitarianism
or Christianity itself – both of them nothing if not spirited policies –
could be exported to savage lands save in military baggage-cars, and
maintained there safely save by imperial garrisons, was as yet far from
plain.25

While Nyasaland and Uganda are both places where the Army brought
peace, Christianity in the Empire (at least before the First World War)
also benefited from its identification of missionaries and British colonial
power. However, it was not military power or even peace that was
required for missionaries to proselytize non-Christians successfully but
rather, as was shown in the case of Korea, the identification between
Christianity and nationalism in which the protection of culture and lan-
guage loomed large.

II
There were occasions when Christianity and, more usually, other religions
became significant factors in overall strategic considerations of imperial
defence.
210 A.H. Ion
Indeed, nowhere was the religious issue more evident in the British
Empire than in India whose religions were almost as varied and numerous
as its languages. Although the majority of Indians were either Hindus or
Muslims, there were significant numbers of Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and
Jains. In 1892, Sir Charles Dilke and Spenser Wilkinson pointed out that

the supremacy of the English rests only to a limited extent upon their
own superior force. It is made possible by the divisions among the
natives. To a great extent our ascendancy is ‘moral’, resting, that is,
upon character and self-confidence. To this confidence the natives
bow. It has produced in them a corresponding belief in the omnipo-
tence of Great Britain.26

Yet, it was also fortunate for the British that there were numbers of
Indians who saw soldiering as an honourable profession and were pre-
pared to join the colours. Prior to 1914, the majority of recruits for the
Indian Army were drawn from the so-called fighting classes, which
included Dogras, Garhwalis, Jats, Kumanonis, Madrasis, Mahrattas, Hin-
dustani Muslims, Punjabi Muslims, Rajputana Muslims, Pathans, Rajputs
and Sikhs. North India was a particularly strong recruiting area with Sikhs
contributing very large numbers to both the cavalry and infantry and
Gurkhas (Hindus, recruited outside of India in Nepal) also providing
large numbers. However, it was Muslims recruited both in the south and
the north of India as well as from tribes beyond the Northwest Frontier
who provided the largest proportion to both cavalry and infantry.27 In
1919, widespread demonstrations in the Punjab, even before the dis-
graceful atrocity of the Amritsar Massacre, were the cause of particular
worry to the British authorities because the Punjab provided a dispropor-
tionately large number of troops both Sikhs and Muslims for the Indian
Army.28 Yet, despite the fact that Britain went to war against a Muslim
Ottoman Empire, Muslim troops in African and Indian units remained
loyal to the British cause. The pool of Indian manpower that the British
could draw on was relatively limited; as late as 1937, D. H. Cole held that
the fighting classes in India amounted to no more than 40 million people
and that 60 per cent of combatant troops in the Indian Army came from
the Punjab, while Bengal with a population greater than that of Britain
only provided some 7,000 troops out of a total of 683,000 Indian troops.29
Affection and loyalty to the British in terms of joining the armed forces in
wartime had, at least, in terms of the expansion of the Indian Army
during the Second World War much to do with the desire for regular pay
and membership in an honourable profession rather than hatred of a
distant enemy.30 However, the British rulers in India can be seen to be
exploiting a relative small group of warrior classes largely drawn from
religious minorities to help them maintain military control over the reli-
gious majority. Nevertheless, this military exploitation is softened by a
 The empire that prays together stays together 211
romantic gloss that permeated much of the British encounter with the
warring classes in India and which was nowhere more pronounced than
on the Northwest Frontier. A gloss, however blush-rose it was, that can
safely be said to be largely one-sided.
From Alexander the Great to Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis and a
great scroll of names in between them, military and also political careers
were made or unmade on the Northwest Frontier. Akbar S. Ahmed has
pointed out that the colonial encounter there was reduced to the nature
of a cricket match in which both sides – the British and the Pathan –
played by a sportsmanlike set of rules and stressed that

above all, the Frontier represented a male world and its masculine
symbols a system that translated easily into classic public school life . . .
absence of the ‘Mem-Sahib’ that gave life on the Frontier its special
public-schoolboy flavour, and their presence in large numbers after
the opening of the Suez Canal late last century has been considered as
the final ethnic and social barrier between Indians and the British.31

This same male world of public school adventure was not restricted to
Northwest Frontier and its Scouts but can be found in campaigns against
the Mad Mullah in Somaliland during the first quarter of the twentieth
century.
In this, the Indian Army played a part. The King’s African Rifles
(formed by the amalgamation of the Central African and Ugandan Rifles)
drew many of its early British officers, like William Manning, its first
Inspector General and later a distinguished colonial governor in Africa
and Ceylon, from the Indian Army as well as many of its NCOs. Under
Manning, the askaris were used in punitive expeditions often against large
numbers of skilful tribesmen in remote and unmapped regions. The
troops themselves were

drawn from the same tribes, armed with out-of-date rifles, possessed of
marksmanship probably little superior to that of the men they fought
and led only by a handful of British officers, these disciplined askaris
controlled many thousands of their own kind as the effective instru-
ment of British power.32

In his fascinating autobiography, Hugh Boustead, who served in the

Camel Corps in the Sudan during the interwar years, wrote that

the family atmosphere of the company, the manliness and intense

sense of fun of the Sudanese soldier and his complete reliance on his
officer produced a feeling of affection between the British company
commander and his men which formed one of the main charms of
African service with an irregular corps.33
212 A.H. Ion
As H. C. Jackson, a long-time Sudan civil servant, writing in retirement in
the early 1950s pointed out about the Sudanese that

their main concern was to live without fear, to practice their religion
without interference, and to keep for their own use what they had
earned or grown, free from the depredations of robbers or unjust tax-
gatherers. They could not forget the old unhappy days of bloodshed,
extortion and famine, and were grateful to the British for the prosperity
they enjoyed and the security in which they could now pass their lives.34

The mutual respect, knowledge of Arabic, and care not to trample on the
religious and cultural sensitivities of Sudanese troops allowed Boustead
during the Abyssinian campaign to lead his Frontier battalion with consid-
erable success against numerically superior Italian forces. The linguistic
experience of soldiering in the Sudan could be easily transferred as the
empire shrank to the Arabian Peninsula itself, from the Sudan Defence
Force to the Bedouin Hadhrami Legion. Muslim troops and Arabic lan-
guage formed a pool of manpower, which could be transferred from one
part of the empire to another.
Among the most famous to have served with Arab troops was Glubb
Pasha (Lt. General Sir John Glubb) whose name is associated with the
Jordanian Arab Legion, which he commanded from 1939 until his dis-
missal by King Hussein in February 1956. While Glubb commanded a
Jordanian rather than a British force (although it contained a number of
British officers on secondment), the Arab Legion under his command
served alongside British troops during the Iraq and Syrian campaigns of
1941 and helped to guard British military installations all over the
Middle East during the Second World War. While the Arab Legion drew
recruits from settled parts of Jordan, Glubb also adopted a policy of
bedouinization drawing recruits from bedouin tribes as far afield as
southern Iraq and Kuwait. As opposed to the town dweller, the loyalty of
the bedouin was a personal one to their clan, their tribe and their
sheikh. In the Arab Legion, their loyalty was to King of Jordan, a direct
descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. As such the bedouin element
was much less prone to the political intrigue, which has bedevilled other
Arab armies since 1945 and rallied to King Hussein during the
attempted coup of 1957 and again in 1970 and 1971 in the fighting
against Palestine Liberation Organization commandos. In looking at
Glubb, James Lunt has pointed out that

his philosophy stemmed from his faith, which was based on the power
of love. For him, as for the simplest bedouin camel-herd, God was
ever-present, all-seeing and all-beneficent. The Arabs knew he was a
devout man and respected him the more for it. His soldiers were
never mere names or numbers. They were always individuals.35
 The empire that prays together stays together 213
In a real sense, religious differences, provided mutual respect existed
among men of faith, proved no barrier to the recruitment of Arabs or
Sudanese or Nigerians into British controlled forces. Just as there was a
marked tendency among Anglican missionaries during the late nineteenth
century to seek out groups, often belonging to dying cultures like the
Ainu of remote Hokkaido or the Tayal of Taiwan who were unsullied by
impact of modernization and urbanization, or the nineteenth century sol-
diering counterpart drawn to the Northwest Frontier with its public school
boy adventuring against the wily scheming Pathans, so the late imperial
soldiers and administrators, like Glubb or Boustead, found themselves
most attune with the bedouin of the desert or the Furs of Darfur. These
were peoples still largely untouched by the polluting influences of the
modern town and urban culture but still possessing from earlier times a
manly warrior tradition. Where there was little respect for religious beliefs,
religion could act as a potent force against military occupation as was the
case with the resistance of the Karen hill tribesmen, many of whom were
influenced by Christianity, to the Japanese in Burma.
While the Indian Army and Indian troops were seen as imperial police-
men to be sent to quell the emergency in both Mesopotamia and East
Africa at the beginning of the First World War, the experience of fighting
von Lettow-Vorbeck revealed that the King’s African Rifles and other
African regiments could perform well in military operations more
sophisticated than punitive expeditions against recalcitrant tribesmen. It
was not, of course, until the Second World War that African troops were
employed outside of Africa. In the fighting in Burma against the Japan-
ese, African troops proved to be very capable in the jungle warfare. As
David French has pointed out, it was during the Second World War that
Britain relied more than ever before upon the manpower of the Empire.
In the course of the war, Britain, the Dominions and the Empire mobil-
ized 103 divisions or their equivalents of which only 49 were raised in
Britain and 54 were raised in India, West Africa and the Dominions.36 By
providing Britain with the manpower to stave off defeat in the Second
World War and to defeat ultimately its enemies, the Empire more than
proved its worth.

III
Religion also played a political role in the empire, which impinged on
imperial defence. It was important, in many cases, to try to prevent religion
from becoming the emotional focus that could lead to an intensification of
conflict. This was true even in an apparently stable country like late nine-
teenth century Canada. The relatively minor 1885 Riel Rebellion in the
Canadian Northwest had within it the potential of creating serious dif-
ficulties for Canadian confederation had Louis Riel, its Metis leader,
chosen to fan Roman Catholic–Protestant antipathies and French and
214 A.H. Ion
English hostilities by projecting himself as a Francophone Roman Catholic
martyr unjustly persecuted by a largely Anglophone Protestant Federal
government led by Sir John A. Macdonald, a statesman born in Scotland.
Happily, for the Canadian government, atheistic statements by Riel alien-
ated many of the Roman Catholic clergy in Quebec. Only a small imperial
force was needed to pacify the Canadian Northwest and to capture Riel
whose subsequent execution remains a controversial issue in Canadian
history. Canadian federal governments ran great political risks, however, in
going against the Roman Catholic clergy in Quebec whose particularistic
proclivities were opposed to any Canadian physical participation in imper-
ial defence. This the Liberal government of Wilfrid Laurier had realized at
the time of the Boer War, and the Conservative government of Robert
Borden found out during the Conscription Crisis in 1917.
As well as Canada, religion was a political factor in other parts of the
empire including the strategically crucial British mandate of Palestine
after the First World War. Rudyard Kipling considered Palestine so
important a region that he described it as ‘the buckle on the belt of the
world’,37 whose Holy Places were sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims
alike and where British rule both there and elsewhere in the Middle East
faced grave difficulties, if the problems of Palestine became a Pan-
Muslim affair.38 While political and religious turmoil marked British rule
in Palestine down to 1948, it was not religion that was Britain’s undoing
in the Middle East. It was the secular political revolution in the Middle
East that came out of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which first manifested
itself in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 that challenged Britain’s posi-
tion there. The empire had provided British administrators and soldiers
with opportunities to manage religion, but the Egyptian revolution
brought a changing direction to the wind of morning blowing in the
Middle East. Ironically, it was not Pan-Muslimism but rather a secular
Pan-Arabism espoused by Colonel Nasser of Egypt that proved the
undoing of Britain.
The debacle of the Suez Intervention of 1957 revealed Britain to be
out of touch with the new political reality in the Middle East. The revolu-
tions in Syria and Iraq following hard on that of Egypt destroyed govern-
ments in place since the end of the First World War and with it the
outside dominance of Britain and France in that region. The new
regimes were led by military officers and educated townspeople who had
been brought up under what they perceived to have been the iron heel
of foreign imperialism and saw salvation through the implementation of
secular political agendas at home and anti-imperialism abroad. It would
have to wait for the Iranian Revolution of 1979 before religion was
brought back to the forefront in Middle Eastern politics. While this
might have marked the return to a more familiar grounding for Middle
Eastern politics, the passing of the imperial age meant that the
pool of British military and administrative knowledge of how to deal with
 The empire that prays together stays together 215
Islam, which had accumulated with the imperial experience, had also
largely disappeared.
If it was new secular factors rather than religion that challenged that
Britain’s post-Second World War position in the Middle East, it was reli-
gion that finally broke up British India. The recalcitrant attitude of the
National Congress Party towards the war effort against the Axis powers
caused the wartime Viceroy of India, Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell,
actively to promote cooperation between Indian Muslims and the British
authorities because of the realization that a disproportionate percentage
of the Indian Army was Muslim.39 Imperial defence concerns caused by
the Japanese danger to India led him to do this in spite of both the
Muslim League’s call for Britain ‘to divide and quit’ India and the fact
that British India was on the verge of cleaving itself apart on the
independent fissure lines between Hindus and Muslims. Once the war
had ended, high expectations of early independence meant that it was
difficult to go back on past understandings. Military considerations also
meant that the British authorities had little room to manoeuvre in obtain-
ing a political solution to the issue of divide or not. There was a belief
among the British authorities that the loyalty of the Indian Civil Service
and the Indian Army could not be trusted in carrying out British orders.
Yet, it was not the Indian Civil Service and Indian Army that ultimately
was important in deciding whether or not India that the British left
behind was partitioned or not, it was the British. As has been shown, as
early as 1892, Charles Dilke stressed that British ascendancy was moral
and rested on character and self-confidence. It was self-confidence that
the British lacked in India after the war; the will to rule had evaporated.
The defence of British India ultimately did not rest with the Indian Army
but with the British armed forces. British soldiers in India had no
stomach for maintaining peace and order there; they only wanted to go
home.40 It was left to Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, to reach what
settlement he could. As it had in 1857, so religion in 1947 brought
turmoil to India. It was Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs who were now pitted
against each other, and this time the Christian British washed their hands
of the religious bloodshed that marked the end of their rule of the sub-
continent.
In its times of greatest crisis, Britain was able to mobilize the man-
power resources of the Empire for its defence and in doing so greatly
adding to its military strength and hard power. In times of peace, locally
raised levies in Africa, India and China allowed Britain to maintain law
and order in its Empire without the need for a very large British stand-
ing army. In large part, this was only possible because of the ability of
Britain to accommodate men of different religions and customs within
locally raised levies. While Christianity was the religion of most Britons
and was considered by many as being an essential part of British civil-
ization, non-Christians were happily accepted as soldiers (sometimes for
216 A.H. Ion
the protection of Christian work, as in Nyasaland) and Christian sensitiv-
ities were not allowed to interfere. What the missionary movement did
provide through its evangelistic, educational, medical and social work
was reinforcement for the efficacy of British civilization and institutions
in the minds of colonial peoples, and in doing so, it enhanced the
imperial power through soft power. At the same time, Christian missions
can also be seen as contributing to the growth of nationalism among
colonial peoples, which was not necessarily in the interest of Britain as
the imperial overlord. If decolonization meant that the predominantly
Muslim regiments in the British imperial forces in Africa and India dis-
appeared, the retrenchment of the British Army has also meant that the
Cameroonians and so many other regiments raised in England and Scot-
land in times when Christianity was an important force in national life
have also gone. The religious tapestry of the overseas Empire helped
weave the protective shroud of imperial defence in the 100 years
between the Indian Mutiny and Suez on which British trade, prestige
and power was sustained. Its wool and woof also made the military saga
of Empire that more colourful, adventurous and inspiring.

Notes
1 Max Warren, Social History and Christian Mission (London, 1967), 72.
2 See Ian Hernon, Britain’s Forgotten Wars: Colonial Campaigns of the 19th Century
(Thrupp, 2003), 405–424.
3 Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and
Expansion (Basingstoke, 3rd. edition, 2002), 330–331.
4 James Lunt, Imperial Sunset: Frontier Soldiering in the 20th Century (London,
1981), 205.
5 Eric Goddard, ‘The Indian Army – Company and Raj’, Asian Affairs, 63 (New
Series Vol. VII), Part III (October 1976): 263–276, 263.
6 Gordon Johnson, ‘Indian Independence (1) Taking the strain, (2) Cutting the
knot’, Asian Affairs, XVI (Old Series Vol. 72), Part III (October 1985): 254–264,
257.
7 James Lawrence, Raj: The Making and the Unmaking of British India (London,
1997), 540, quoted in Sean M. Maloney, Canada and UN Peacekeeping: Cold War
by Other Means, 1945–1970 (St Catherines, 2003), 23.
8 J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, edited and with an introduction by John
Gross (Chicago and London, 1971), 43.
9 Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Eathen’, quoted in Angela Partington, The Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford, 1992), 398.
10 See, for instance, Norman Etherington, ‘Missions and Empire’, in Robin W.
Winks, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire. Volume V: Historiography
(Oxford, 2001), 303–314.
11 The other elements being: first, the maintenance of the Empire; second, the
opening of new areas for our surplus population; third, the suppression of the
slave trade, and fifth, the development of British commerce.
12 Warren, Social History and Christian Mission, 30.
13 Captain Colomb, R. N., Slave-Catching in the Indian Ocean: A Record of Naval
Experiences (London, 1968, originally published in 1873), 403.
14 Henry H. Montgomery, Foreign Missions (London, 1908), 83.
 The empire that prays together stays together 217
15 Ibid., 98.
16 Warren, Social History and Christian Mission, 131.
17 Peter Hinchliff, ‘Africa’, in John McManners, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History
of Christianity (Oxford, 1992), 455–487, 486.
18 Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions (Harmondsworth, 1964), 254.
19 David Gilmour, ‘Empire and the East: The Orientalism of Lord Curzon’, Asian
Affairs, vol. XXVI (Old Series vol. 82), Part III (October 1995): 270–277, 272.
20 Colomb, Slave-Catching in the Indian Ocean, 410–432.
21 Ibid., 411.
22 Keith Sinclair, The Origins of the Maori Wars (Wellington, 1957), 222–223.
23 Keith Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Harmondsworth, 1959), 42.
24 Warren, Social History and Christian Mission, 31.
25 A. P. Thornton, The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies: A Study in British Power
(London, 1959), 50.
26 Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke and Spenser Wilkinson, Imperial Defence (London,
1892), 101–102.
27 Sir Stanley Reed and S. T. Sheppard, eds, The Indian Year Book 1929 (Bombay
and Calcutta, 1929), 281.
28 Denis Judd, The Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600–1947
(Oxford, 2004), 136–137.
29 D. H. Cole, Imperial Military Geography (London, 1924), 353–354.
30 Judd, The Lion and the Tiger, 154.
31 Akbar S. Ahmed, ‘An Aspect of the Colonial Encounter in the North-West
Frontier Province’, Asian Affairs, Vol. IX (Old Series Vol. 65), Part III (October
1978): 319–327, 325.
32 Lieutenant-Colonel H. Moyse-Bartlett, The King’s African Rifles: A Study in the
Military History of East and Central Africa, 1890–1945 (Aldershot, 1956), 684.
33 Hugh Boustead, The Wind of Morning: The Autobiography of Hugh Boustead
(London, 1971), 78.
34 H. C. Jackson, The Fighting Sudanese (London, 1954), 32.
35 James Lunt, ‘Glubb Pasha’, Asian Affairs, vol. XVIII (Old Series Vol. 74), Part II
(June 1987): 129–137, 137.
36 David French, The British Way in Warfare 1688–2000 (London, 1990), 205.
37 Kipling quoted in Cole, Imperial Military Geography, 326.
38 Ibid., 327.
39 Judd, The Lion and the Tiger, 161.
40 Ibid., 168–169.
11 Propaganda and the defence of
empire, 1856–1956
Stephen Badsey

Propaganda was not a word, or even an idea, that came readily to the
defenders of the British Empire during 1856–1956, particularly during the
first half of our period. A search of the National Archives at Kew reveals
only a handful of files dated before 1906 with the word ‘propaganda’ in
their titles, and in all cases these are either references to the activities of
foreigners, or to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, the body estab-
lished by the Roman Catholic Church to promote the dissemination of
true doctrine in 1622. Of files referring to ‘Empire Propaganda’ there are
exactly two, dating from the late 1930s and 1940s and dealing with routine
matters in the Dominions Office and the British Council, respectively.1 It
was not until the First World War that the British government established
any official organisations for the production and dissemination of propa-
ganda, whether aimed at their own people, their enemies, or neutrals.
Contrary to a powerful mythology which started in the 1920s and has not
yet been entirely eradicated, there was no coherent policy or organisation
for British propaganda in 1914, and the institutions that were created
were at first a bewildering mixture of the official and the semi-official. For
the British, propaganda was something that other countries did, while one
First World War propagandist characterised their own activities as ‘con-
fined to the presentation of facts and of general arguments based upon
facts’.2 Indeed, from the First World War onwards, the preferred British
term was always ‘news’ or ‘information’. The ad hoc organisations were
not even partly consolidated into a Ministry of Information (MoI) until
spring 1918 and even that ministry was disbanded immediately at the war’s
end. The sinister overtones that the word propaganda acquired in the
course of the First World War and shortly afterwards led to a continued
British preference for the term ‘news’ to describe their minimal official
propaganda efforts of the interwar period.3 A new MoI was established at
the start of the Second World War, together with other more clandestine
propaganda organisations including the Political Warfare Executive
(PWE), but these also began the war badly and were both disbanded in
1945.4 To take successive British governments at their own valuation
would suggest that propaganda played no part at all in the defence of
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 219
Great Britain and its Empire until 1914 and that thereafter it was seen as a
distasteful and temporary wartime expedient, to be abandoned as soon as
peace was declared.
Professional practitioners and students of propaganda not only define
propaganda much more widely than this but do not associate the idea of
propaganda inherently with deceit or dishonesty. From the 1920s
onwards, most definitions of propaganda have emphasised its function,
that of influencing opinion in a direction desired by the propagandist.
Propaganda can appeal to the intellect, the emotions, or both; it works
best in a partnership with real power, and also with the truth, or at least in
the absence of blatant or deliberate falsehood. In this sense, according to
the 1950s French political theorist Jacques Driencourt, ‘Everything is pro-
paganda’.5 Among the cultural achievements, artefacts and events identi-
fied as British Imperial propaganda, are the building of the Ottawa
parliament and the cathedrals of Sydney and Calcutta in the English
Gothic style, Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Recessional’ of 1903, and even that
the first ever cinema film to be shown in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1897 was a
dramatisation of Henry Rider Haggard’s novel She.6 Culture and the arts,
including literature, have traditionally been seen as peripheral to the prac-
tical business of government (or, at best, additional as in the Marxist ‘base
and superstructure’ theory), and this has applied particularly to the use of
the arts as propaganda in the service of warfare. For the whole of the
period 1856–1956, it was de rigeur for senior British military commanders
to affect to despise propaganda and the press as distasteful irrelevances.
But there are fashions and discoveries in history as in any other discipline,
and a most influential recent development has been the linking together
of culture with political and economic power, so that those still struggling
to come to terms with Karl von Clausewitz must now also face Jürgen
Habermas. Yet, another of those philosophers whose works are quoted far
more often than read (his seminal book The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere was translated into English only in 1989) the popularity of
Habermas’s arguments, and those of his interpreters, stems from their
useful explanation for the non-quantifiable factors in political and military
power.7 Habermas postulated that, in eighteenth-century Britain and
Europe, circumstances combined to produce a ‘public opinion’, consist-
ing largely of informal associations of the economically powerful and the
culturally and intellectually influential, that was also separate from the
ruling court. At a time of comparatively weak instruments of government,
it was not enough for the rulers of Europe to hold political authority and
military power, and it was also important for them to impress this bourgeois’
public opinion and secure its cooperation. Methods of gaining this public
opinion included displays of culture both in the narrow sense of the arts
and in the wider sense of patriotism or other forms of ideological unity.
The celebrations, commemorations, and processions that accompanied
military victories or important political events were not merely frills, they
220 S. Badsey
were an essential part of the power that a ruler possessed.8 This eight-
eenth-century model of a relationship between a ruler whose political and
military power was in practice limited and a body of subjects aware of their
own identity and wielding considerable influence fits very well with the
British Empire at its height. This would make propaganda, in the sense of
a public display of confidence backed by the credible threat of force, one
of the critical elements of Imperial defence. Indeed, these cultural theo-
ries show, at times, a striking connection with more conventional military
concepts of deterrence. One of the clearest examples comes at the very
start of our period. In 1856, the British forced a conclusion to the
Crimean War on terms favourable to themselves by publicly building the
‘great armament’, a floating siege train intended to bombard the coastal
fortress defending St Petersburg, and then, after the peace was signed, dis-
playing this mighty flotilla at Spithead for the world to see and The Times
to report.9
In a reflection of this link between power and propaganda, official con-
cerns were expressed throughout the period about British ‘prestige’, espe-
cially in the maintenance of order in India after the Mutiny of 1857.10 As
the pinnacle of this prestige, the elaborate ceremonials of enthronement
and anniversaries for the British monarchy, which were an entirely artifi-
cial creation arising out of fears of republicanism that first appeared late
in the reign of Queen Victoria, were also an important part of the propa-
ganda of Empire. Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee of 1897, in particular, was
marked by processions of Imperial troops through the centre of London.11
Although Victoria herself never visited India despite being made Empress
in 1877, her grandson George V’s durbar in Delhi in 1911 completed the
process whereby Royal occasions became also Imperial occasions. These
events became propaganda displays of power and prestige, orchestrated to
offset agitation by Bengali nationalists.
If there was no actual British government department dedicated to pro-
paganda in Victoria’s reign, it was because there scarcely needed to be.
Propaganda was such an integral part of the way that the British ruled their
country and Empire that its operation at any time in the period 1856–1956
reflected the prevailing political orthodoxy. In the Victorian era, it was
either a well-understood practice of the governing elites or a largely infor-
mal arrangement between government and business, to the extent that
Reuter’s news agency’s own authorised history has described its role during
1865–1914 as ‘an Imperial institution’, having been given a monopoly
within the Empire in 1870.12 Reporters for British newspapers working
overseas actively sought to cooperate with the local British embassy or con-
sulate.13 Later, in the First World War, as government became more active
in organising the country for war, so propaganda organisations evolved
from a series of temporary improvisations towards more centralised
control. Finally, in the Second World War and afterwards, propaganda
would become almost entirely an activity run or directed by the state.
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 221
In the Victorian era, there were a few private or semi-private organisa-
tions dedicated to promoting the idea of Empire, such as the Empire
League or the Imperial Institute founded in London in 1887 as part of Vic-
toria’s Golden Jubilee.14 But mostly, propaganda took the form of the arts,
including paintings, plays, music halls, and novels, together with images
from advertising and other aspects of everyday life; the later Victorians and
Edwardians lived their lives surrounded by the propaganda of Empire.15
Much of this propaganda was militaristic in nature, including an emphasis
on military service for the Empire and such pressure groups as the Navy
League and the National Service League. Particular studies have been
made of the ways in which young boys were propagandised, including the
stories depicted in Boys Own Paper (founded in 1879 by the Religious Tract
Society), W. H. Fitchett’s Deeds That Won the Empire (1899), and the original
1908 edition of Scouting for Boys, now characterised as an ‘imperialist hand-
book’.16 The propaganda of Empire was always of great importance as a jus-
tification for its continued expansion, including the depiction in
newspapers and books of enemies as fundamentally ‘other’, and of the
British as engaged in a civilising mission.17 This was the propaganda that
the British gave to themselves, and which the two or three generations after
1856 grew up learning, and it is possible to trace its effects on their political
and social elites. Although the Empire had little to do with the reformed
public schools movement begun by Dr Thomas Arnold at Rugby that
spread first throughout Britain and then the Dominions, by about 1900,
the ideals of social hierarchy and upper class leadership which it instilled
were expressed most deeply in the armed forces and in Imperial service.18
The propaganda of Empire was so much part of the social fabric of these
schools that overt public declarations were seen as bad taste and contrary
to the public school ethic; Rudyard Kipling’s archetypal 1870s public
schoolboy ‘Stalky’ (based on Kipling’s friend Major General Lionel Dun-
sterville, with whom he had attended the United Services College)
described an overly enthusiastic school speech-day propagandist of Empire
as a ‘Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper’.19 Rather, phrases such as ‘The school spe-
cialises in the preparation of boys for the ICS [Indian Civil Service] and the
Colonial Services’ were given discreet mention in the school prospectus.20
Imperial ideals were held as deeply as religious beliefs; indeed, they were
often combined, and it was considered just as inappropriate for a gentle-
man to discuss them.21
This may all seem removed from the defence of the British Empire, but
it was of great importance to the way in which the Empire was defended.
The ideology of correct and gentlemanly behaviour as a trait of the British
ruling elite played a particular role in the continued Indian acceptance of
British rule after 1857 and even in the negotiations that led to independ-
ence in 1947. At the height of the Second World War, the offer of a per-
sonal ‘gentleman’s agreement’ enabled the British to improve relations
with Pandit Jawaharal Nehru, then held under detention, by allowing him
222 S. Badsey
to visit his sick wife.22 Nehru was one of several twentieth-century enemies
of the British Empire who understood the importance of this British pro-
paganda image of themselves. Educated at Harrow and Cambridge,
he condemned the Amritsar massacre of 1919 as ‘to use public school lan-
guage, it was the height of bad form’.23 The recognition that the British
were vulnerable when acting contrary to their own propaganda image
became a theme of twentieth-century colonial insurgency, being shared by
the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1916–1922, the Jewish separatists in
Palestine in 1945–1948 and the Greek Cypriots of EOKA in 1955.
Nehru’s outrage that in the Amritsar Massacre the British had violated
their own propaganda image of the Empire as a force for civilisation has
also been reflected in the attention paid, both at the time and by historians
ever since, to those bloody incidents in which the Imperial use of violence
was deemed to have crossed an invisible but well-understood boundary,
such as the suppression of the Jamaica Rebellion in 1865, the near-geno-
cide of the Australian aborigines, the concentration camps of the Boer
War, and the execution of the Easter Rising leaders in Dublin in 1916. For
some, the area bombing campaign by RAF Bomber Command during
1942–1945 falls into the same category, although in that case British public
opinion appears to have been very supportive and any debate in public and
the press took place after rather than before each episode.24 At the height
of Empire, there were some uses of force and military practices from which
the British sought to bar themselves regardless of their military effect-
iveness, because they violated the underlying propaganda on which the
stability of the Empire itself rested. This was sometimes to the great annoy-
ance or affected bewilderment of the generals, presumably as a reflection
of careers spent largely in isolation from British public opinion: Lord
Kitchener’s indignation at criticism of his concentration camps is a fine
example. But in the First World War in particular, the fact that regular
British officers shared an ideology of correct gentlemanly behaviour with
new officer recruits from civilian life was a considerable aid to the expan-
sion and cohesion of the Army.25
It is both a commonplace and a paradox that the chief British financial
beneficiaries of Empire in this period were only a small elite. The pinnacle
of this elite, the covenanted Indian Civil Service, only rose to just above a
1,000 members by the start of the twentieth century.26 The officer corps of
the RN, the British Army, the Indian Army, and later the RAF contributed
a few thousand more. Then there were the self-made millionaires who
would not have achieved success without the Empire, for whom Cecil
Rhodes consciously made himself a role model, but they were very few. For
the British industrial working class, the benefits of Empire were emotional
and psychological rather than material, except for such delights as exotic
fruits like the banana, soothing cups of bedtime cocoa, or gold and dia-
monds cheap enough for engagement and wedding rings.27 For an other-
wise unemployable middle-class, ‘younger sons, well-born orphans, the
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 223
sons of the clergy,’ jobs that would have been considered menial in Britain
such as policeman or trader were invested with a far greater status by the
Empire.28 One notable if atypical case was George Orwell’s brief spell in
the Burma Police in the 1920s after leaving Eton, an experience which
turned him into a marked anti-Imperial propagandist.29 While for the
upper-middle and upper class, ‘nothing made the British feel so Imperial as
India’,30 for those people of British descent who were born or grew up in
India, the colonies or the dominions, the knowledge of the opportunities
offered by a career in London were an equally important source of pride.
A few, like the Canadian-born Lord Beaverbrook (Max Aitken), the single
most important figure in British propaganda during the First World War
and owner of the Daily Express, reached to the very heights of the British
political establishment.
If the real ties of Empire were cultural and emotional, rather than finan-
cial or even rational in the political sense, then the propaganda of Empire
lay at the very heart of Imperial defence. But what most of the British
people really thought about the Empire remains a historical mystery for
most of this period. Not until 1935 did the American George Gallop estab-
lish the technique of scientific opinion polling, and the founding of Mass
Observation in Great Britain in 1937 added selective snapshots of middle
class and working class views, which by that late date largely took the
Empire for granted.31 Although there have been attempts to discover the
range of British attitudes towards the Boer War of 1899–1902, only broad
conclusions are possible: that the British working class rejected domestic
opposition to the war, and that younger men largely from the middle class
were prepared to volunteer for it in large numbers.32 This attitude in not
surprising, given that by 1898, taking into account youth training and auxil-
iary service in such organisations as the Rifle Volunteers as well as the
regular British Army, an estimated 22.42 per cent of British (including
Irish) men born between 1858 and 1881 had some current or previous
form of military experience.33 Taking this together with the volunteer
movement of the Boer War and the much larger intakes of volunteers and
conscripts of the two world wars, the entire period 1856–1956 was one in
which the fact of military experience was intertwined with military propa-
ganda as a major part of the British popular culture.
This ideological commitment to fight for the mother country, (or, as
expressed by the New Zealander Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park during the
Battle of Britain, for London as the ‘Capital of the Empire’) also extended
to the dominions.34 At the turn of the century, many among the elites of
Canada and Australia saw little distinction between fighting for their own
countries and for Great Britain (possibly because so many were already
comfortable with the dual cultural identity of being Scots or Irish but also
British), a commitment to Empire which was reflected in their sending
volunteers to fight in the Boer War.35 The Australian poet, journalist and
sometime soldier Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson, best known for ‘Waltzing
224 S. Badsey
Matilda’, celebrated the Australian participation, in which he shared, in
1900: ‘They came to prove to all the earth that kinship conquers
space/and those who fight the British Isles must fight the British race!’36
In the First World War, a significant proportion of the adult male popula-
tions of the dominions also served overseas: from just over 11 per cent of
South Africans to a remarkable 19 per cent of New Zealanders.37 Histor-
ians have emphasised the tensions of Empire inherent in Canada’s delay
in introducing conscription until 1917 (and then not in Quebec) and the
Australian referenda that rejected it. But what is truly amazing, and power-
ful evidence of the ideological strength of the Empire, is that most of
those who fought for it did so voluntarily. Conscription was unnecessary
throughout the Empire for the first two years of the war, being introduced
in Great Britain itself in early 1916, except for Ireland. In the First World
War, the all-volunteer Indian Army also swelled to over 1.2 million men,
more than a third of them recruited from the Punjab and many serving
overseas.38
How much any one individual was inspired to volunteer to fight the
wars of the British Empire, or sustained in the fighting, by its propa-
ganda image is certainly no straightforward question. Tradition sees no
greater enemies of the idea of the British Empire than the Irish. Yet, in
1856, the people of Ireland enthusiastically supported participation in
the Crimean War, celebrated it with the propaganda of broadsheets and
ballads, and commemorated it with banquets and statues, in virtually the
same propaganda response as the rest of the UK.39 At the other end of
our period, in the Second World War an estimated 70,000–80,000 cit-
izens of Eire volunteered to fight in the British armed forces, including
five Victoria Cross winners, surely a record for a neutral country.40 But by
1939–1945, the British themselves were downplaying any mention of
Empire in their propaganda. Virtually the last attempt at an Imperial
pressure group, the creation of an ‘Empire Crusade’ to promote closer
links between Britain and the Empire in 1940, was seen by the MoI as
something of an embarrassment.41
A very complex mixture of social and economic trends produced a mass
industrialised society in Great Britain after 1856, and many of the same
factors, and particularly the same technology, also led to transformations in
the nature of war, but even more to transformations in the ability of the
media to record and depict war, and in the market for such depictions. It
has been observed that the same changes in optics that produced
improved gun sights for the artillery in the later nineteenth century also
produced better cameras to photograph them.42 Much the same techno-
logical improvements have been cited as an important part of the story of
the nineteenth-century expansion of the British Empire.43 The means avail-
able for propaganda increased greatly in this period, starting with the tele-
graph and the expanded newspaper industry of the 1850s, the coloured
picture postcards and posters of the 1880s, the first cinema newsreels of
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 225
the 1900s, radio in the 1920s, and ending in the 1950s with television.44
The relationship between the evolving mass politics, technology, and pro-
paganda was interactive and reciprocal. One of the first signs of a new
awareness by later nineteenth-century British public opinion of the vulner-
ability of Great Britain to invasion in the face of changing naval technolo-
gies, and the use of propaganda to popularise the issue, came in 1871 with
the well-known fictional story The Battle of Dorking, written by Sir George
Chesney and first published in Blackwood’s.45 But almost as great an impres-
sion was made in New Zealand in 1873 by the publication of an equally fic-
titious and propagandist article in the Daily Southern Cross of the surprise
bombardment of Auckland by the Russian cruiser Kaskowiski (‘cask o’
whisky’). The implications for Imperial defence of such a sneak attack on
an unprotected colony were still being debated 20 years later.46 One even-
tual result, the presentation of the battlecruiser HMS New Zealand to the
RN, paid for by the country’s taxpayers, was chiefly symbolic of a commit-
ment to Imperial defence: the ship had only three New Zealanders among
its officer complement.47
Propaganda directed by the British against their enemies and potential
enemies also played an important role in Victorian warfare. Emphasis
was placed on ‘cowing’ hostile peoples into accepting British rule, and this
frequently took the form of a symbolic episode of submission or degrada-
tion.48 One serious, if unsuccessful, British objective in the Ashanti War
1873–1874 was the capture and use of the Golden Stool on which the
Asantehene (king) was enthroned, while Lord Kitchener’s desecration of
the Mahdi’s tomb, reported and recorded in sketches and photographs,
put a propaganda seal on his victory at Omdurman in 1898.49 This ritualis-
tic and propagandistic behaviour was rooted in the very practical military
issue that such an extensive global Empire was impossible to defend from
internal and external enemies and that, at the start of any war, the troops
available were often inadequate in numbers and unfamiliar with local con-
ditions. For many senior Army officers at least, the failure to avenge a
defeat meant a threat to the long-term stability of the Empire, and rising
officers were outraged by the Gladstone Liberal government of
1880–1885, which made peace with the Transvaal Republic after the
defeat at Majuba Hill in 1881 and failed to prevent or revenge the death
of Gordon at Khartoum in 1885. The British could swallow the occasional
defeat, such as Isandhlwana in 1879 or Maiwand in 1880; what they could
not tolerate was national humiliation and loss of status. It was the bad luck
of the Boers to win three battles in one week in December 1899 at the
start of the Boer War; after ‘Black Week’, with its accompanying press and
propaganda furore, there was no possibility of a negotiated peace, and
young British officers including Winston Churchill expressed the view that
they would not want to return home if the war was lost. It was the symbolic
humiliation of the fall of Singapore in January 1942, recorded in photo-
graphs and film by the Japanese, that undermined the British position in
226 S. Badsey
the Far East and the final humiliation of Suez in 1956 that marked the
symbolic end of Imperial Britain.
By the time of the Boer War, the relationship between British and
Imperial military strength and propaganda was well understood. Sir Alfred
Milner prepared the ground for war by generating propaganda within the
London newspapers, and Field Marshal Lord Roberts as commander-in-
chief in South Africa included unofficially within his staff a coterie of
famous writers, including Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle, to generate
propaganda for him.50 Roberts exercised tight control on British war
reporters, although they also subscribed overwhelmingly to the ideology
of Empire; one of the most important, George W. Steevens, was lauded
after his death in the siege of Ladysmith as ‘a priest of the Imperialist
ideal’.51 Kipling was only the most prominent of the apologists for Empire
in this time, but his influence continued among military officers long after
he had otherwise ceased to be fashionable. Writing in 1944, Field Marshal
Sir Archibald Wavell described how he read Kipling ‘at an impressionable
age’ and that his poems (together with those of Browning) had ‘stayed
most in my memory’.52 But it is one of the truisms of propaganda that it
acts best in convincing people of what they already wish to believe. No
amount of propaganda by Kipling or others could generate the mass emi-
gration from Britain to South Africa after the Boer War for which Milner
had hoped.
By 1914, British official institutions already existed for controlling
reporters and applying censorship, but not for using propaganda as a
positive force. However, the traditional gentlemen’s agreements on propa-
ganda had also become more institutionalised. In 1910, Reuters began an
Imperial News Service and in the following year entered into a secret
agreement with the British government to give ministerial speeches the
fullest circulation within the Empire. Throughout the First World War,
while remaining an independent company, Reuters exhibited an
inevitably strong pro-British bias in the news that it sent overseas.53
At the start of the First World War, domestic propaganda in the form of
posters and speeches was largely left to regional or local initiatives. But
overseas propaganda was made the task of a new institution based at
Wellington House in London (often later called the War Propaganda
Bureau). Wellington House specialised in producing or funding propa-
ganda, as well as official news, which appeared not to originate with the
British government, and its strategy was to target the generally sympa-
thetic elites. Its chief target was the neutrality of the US, and it benefited
greatly from the deployment in New York and Washington of Canadians
such as Sir Campbell Stuart.54 In January 1917, shortly before the US
entered the war, Wellington House was merged into the larger Depart-
ment of Information (DoI) under the Foreign Office (FO). As part of the
DoI, Wellington House organised, funded, or supported the publication
of about 150 book or pamphlet titles (dispatching half a million copies
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 227
abroad), together with a further million copies being printed overseas and
ten newspaper titles. Wellington House was always keen to project the vol-
untary unity of the Empire, and among its pamphlets were contributions
from important Empire figures including Canadian Prime Minister
Robert Borden and General Jan Smuts, as well as justifications of British
policy in Ireland and India.55 Imperial themes also loomed large in British
visual propaganda: the largest propaganda series of documentary films
produced for the DoI in 1917, showing scenes of the war effort, was enti-
tled Sons of the Empire.
Wellington House’s approach was broadly elitist, but as the strain of the
war increased, so British propaganda began to move towards a more pop-
ulist style, culminating in early 1918 with the appointment of two leading
newspaper magnates already heavily involved in propaganda, Lord Beaver-
brook to head the new MoI and Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times and
the Daily Mail, to head the Directorate of Propaganda in Enemy Countries
(often known from its location as Crewe House). Another myth which
grew in strength in the 1920s and has taken some time in dying is that pro-
paganda from Crewe House played a significant part in the collapse of
Imperial Germany. As part of domestic propaganda in the war’s last year,
the MoI stressed both the contribution by fighting troops from the domin-
ions, and the Imperial aspects of the war including particularly the cam-
paigns in Palestine and Mesopotamia. The British propaganda rhetoric of
1918 was distinctly more imperial than in 1914, and coupled with the real
need for the dominions to take a greater share in the fighting in the last
year of the war, this placed them in a stronger negotiating position with
the mother country.56
Something also changed during the First World War from the Imperial
unity of past wars. Dr Charles Bean, the Australian official chronicler and
historian, deliberately promoted the ‘Digger myth’ of a distinctive Aus-
tralian cultural identity and military superiority through propaganda and
the media, both during the war and later.57 More serious at the time in
terms of its impact on Imperial defence was that, in addition to his
central role in British propaganda, Beaverbrook was also head of the
separate Canadian War Records Office in London. The propaganda put
out by this office emphasised the fighting abilities of Canadian troops
and their cultural distinctiveness from the British, based on a mythology
of the Canadian backwoods that was similar to the Australian ‘digger
myth’ promoted by Bean. Beaverbrook was also not above using the
British propaganda apparatus to promote Canadian interests.58
After the First World War, the British government’s propaganda
presentation of the Empire showed a marked turn away from military
matters towards business and trade, in keeping with the country’s own pre-
occupation with restoring its financial strengths and the brief absence of
major enemies. This new approach was evident in the British Empire
Wembley Exhibition of 1924 and marked both by the creation of the
228 S. Badsey
Empire Marketing Board in 1926 and by its abolition in 1933 as fresh mili-
tary dangers emerged and the idea of Imperial economic unity proved
elusive.59 Wider public attitudes also seem to have changed towards the
Empire and perhaps towards the power and influence of the press barons;
the decline in influence of the political press in Britain has been traced as
starting soon after 1918.60 Beaverbrook provocatively told a Royal Commis-
sion on the Press in 1948 that he ran the Daily Express ‘purely for propa-
ganda and with no other purpose’, but even his support for yet another
‘Empire Crusade’, based on trade protection and begun in 1929, gener-
ated almost no popular enthusiasm.61 Even more, while the broad ideo-
logical consensus underpinning the propaganda of Empire remained
relatively intact, the ideology of an expansionist Empire on a civilising
mission had been ended by the First World War. While outright pacifism
remained the doctrine of a tiny minority, no British politician after 1918
could regard war as anything more than a necessary or unavoidable evil.
Indeed, one of the most effective pieces of privately generated British pro-
paganda of the period was Arthur Ponsonby’s book Falsehood in War-time
(1928), denouncing what it portrayed as the excesses and absurdities of
British official propaganda during the First World War.62 Although feature
films such as Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) and The Four Feathers (1939)
joined the boys’ stories and other media celebrating the old Empire of mil-
itary force, British official propaganda became distinctly idealistic, a trend
given impetus by the founding of the British Council in 1934 to conduct
cultural propaganda overseas.63 British propaganda returned to its tradi-
tions of targeting elite opinion formers with reasoned arguments and
selected information, rather than mass opinion.64
It was also in the interwar years that the idea of domestic public
opinion became important to the Government of India. In the face of a
skilfully mounted political and propaganda campaign for independence,
it sought to develop its own information system in response to the
nationalist movement, with limited success.65 As for the dominions and
colonies, even while they drew further away from Britain politically and
economically, they were brought significantly closer in ideological terms
by two technological developments that also became symbols of Empire.
One of these was BBC radio broadcasts across the globe, starting with an
experimental transmission to Australia in 1927 and leading to the estab-
lishment of the Empire Service in 1932.66 A series of gentlemen’s agree-
ments meant that the Empire Service soon became the epitome of
positive Imperial propaganda, later described by the BBC as ‘more blimp-
ish than Colonel Blimp himself’.67 In this period also, the ideology of
Empire was combined with new technologies, particularly in the form of
aircraft, both civil and military, reflected in government support for the
British aircraft industry, and for Imperial Airways, formed in 1924, with an
emphasis on uniting the Empire through its fleet of long-distance flying
boats in the 1930s, and also for a new role for the RAF in Imperial
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 229
policing.68 Again, the propaganda of Empire fused with the substance of
power, as films made for the Empire Marketing Board and Imperial
Airways, including Contact (1933) and Air Post (1934) helped establish the
(later very influential) British Documentary Movement of film makers.69
Many of these same men went on during the Second World War to make
for the Crown Film Unit and the MoI such propaganda classics as Fires
Were Started and Target for Tonight (both 1941) and Desert Victory (1943),
the celebration of El Alamein as a victory for the British Empire used by
Churchill as propaganda to impress his American and Soviet allies during
critical negotiations in early 1943.70
Very much as before the First World War, from 1938 onwards, Reuters
cooperated informally with the British government in what it saw as coun-
tering Nazi propaganda overseas.71 The BBC also cooperated in govern-
ment propaganda and with the newly formed MoI. Although domestic war
propaganda aimed by the British at themselves was both more centralised
and more organised than in the First World War, the shared ideology and
the extent of the external threat were once again sufficient to make pro-
paganda a kind of partnership between people searching for comfort and
a justification for their cause or in the words of one veteran, ‘a pat on the
back, and a reminder that what you were doing was worth while’.72 British
war correspondents, including citizens of the dominions such as the Aus-
tralian Alan Moorehead of the Daily Express, also considered that they were
keeping faith with the infantrymen rather than generating propaganda.73
But, once again, propaganda could only act in cooperation with power: no
amount of special pleading could offset the damage done to Anglo-Aus-
tralian relations by Singapore, or Indian demands for independence, or
the general decline of British status compared to that of the US and Soviet
Union as the war progressed.
From as early as 1937, the US was once more the principal target of
British overseas propaganda, other than the regular task of countering
German propaganda around the globe. Before the US entered the war in
December 1941, its Neutrality Acts had sought to prevent any belligerent
practising propaganda on American soil, and for this war, the very success-
ful British propaganda campaign was so subtle that for many years its very
existence went unsuspected.74 Because of this focus on the US, the Empire
was always a sensitive topic in British propaganda strategy during the
Second World War, to be avoided as a theme if possible, although the MoI
did have an Empire Division which, among other activities, recruited the
poet John Betjeman to manage British propaganda in Ireland.75 Plans for
the BBC to create a large-scale ‘Empire Broadcasting Network’ were
repeatedly turned down, and the Empire Service merged into a new Over-
seas Service.76 Public opinion in India was considered as particularly
important during the war, and propaganda was provided by radio broad-
casts from All India Radio, run by the Government of India’s Department
of Information and Broadcasting.77 After 1942, the Government of India’s
230 S. Badsey
wider propaganda campaign was run not by the Department of Informa-
tion and Broadcasting (which was dominated by Indian civil servants) but
rather by the Home Department and was based on the inevitability of
Indian independence with results that were the very opposite of its inten-
tion of damping down nationalist aspirations.78
If before the First World War British propaganda about the Empire
had been militaristic and expansionist and chiefly economic in the inter-
war years, then after the Second World War, it reflected ‘a variety of cul-
tures united in liberal constitutional advance’.79 The 1951 Festival of
Britain was a celebration of national culture rather than Imperial achieve-
ment. Even so and despite the disbanding of the MoI and other propa-
ganda institutions, a military need continued for Imperial propaganda, as
the British moved almost without a pause into covert propaganda as an
integral part of the defence of their Empire against insurgency. Although
there was a lot of continuity with wartime institutions, this started with
the creation of the Information Research Department (IRD) in the FO in
1948 and the outbreak of the Malayan Emergency in the same year. In
broad strategic terms, this covert propaganda defence of Empire was seen
as only one aspect of the Cold War and was conducted often without the
knowledge even of cabinet ministers. Even more than in the past, a major
target was elite opinion in the US as well as broad domestic popular
opinion, and the main British strategy was to depict anti-Imperialists as
Communists, however badly the Mau Mau in Kenya or Archbishop
Makarios in Cyprus might fit the profile.80
Finally, the Suez Crisis of 1956 which ends our period saw ‘one of the
most intensive propaganda campaigns conducted by a British govern-
ment’ since 1945, in an attempt to convince the British people of the ideo-
logical righteousness of its actions.81 The use of propaganda in the
defence of Empire, which at the start of our period had been an overt and
integral part of everyday culture, ended it as a covert and somewhat
suspect activity conducted by secret government departments. Even so,
much of the effectiveness of British propaganda still depended on a
shared ideology and on informal gentlemen’s agreements, particularly
between the government and the major institutions of the news media.

Notes
1 Files DO 35 982/2 ‘Empire Propaganda: Education of Children with Regard to
Empire Matters 1938–1940’ and BW 2/319 ‘British Council – Empire Propa-
ganda Abroad 1941–1944’, both National Archives of Great Britain, Public
Record Office, Kew.
2 Quoted in Michael Sanders and Philip M. Taylor, British Propaganda During the
First World War 1914–18 (London, 1982), 41.
3 Philip M. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propa-
ganda 1919–1939 (London, 1981), 1–7.
4 Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 231
in World War II (London, 1979); David Garnett, The Secret History of PWE: The
Political Warfare Executive 1939–1945 (London, 2002).
5 Quoted, together with other definitions, by David Welch, ‘Propaganda: Defini-
tions of’, in Nicholas J. Cull, David Culbert, and David Welch (eds), Propa-
ganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present (Santa
Barbara, 2003), 317–323. See also Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Pro-
paganda and Persuasion (Newbury Park, 1992).
6 Oliver Thomson, Easily Led: A History of Propaganda (Thrupp, 1999), 243.
7 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge,
MA, 1989), translated by Thomas Burger; first published as Strukturwandel der
Offentlicheit (Darmsstadt, 1962).
8 This paragraph, which simplifies a sophisticated argument, is further con-
densed from the valuable summary in T. C. W. Blanning, The Culture of Power
and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660–1789 (Oxford, 2002), 5–14.
9 Andrew Lambert and Stephen Badsey, The Crimean War: The War Correspondents
(Thrupp, 1994), 304–320.
10 Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Representing Authority in Victorian India’, in Eric Hobs-
bawn and Terence Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983),
165–209.
11 David Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The
British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition” c.1820–1977’, in Hobsbawn
and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 124; Denis Judd, Empire: The British Imper-
ial Experience from 1785 to the Present (London, 1996), 130–153.
12 Donald Read, The Power of News: The History of Reuters (Oxford, 1992), 40–89.
13 Lucy Brown, Victorian News and Newspapers (Oxford, 1985), 213–214.
14 John M. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public
Opinion 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1986), 122–146.
15 Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 16–38; Michael Paris, Warrior Nation: Images
of War in British Popular Culture 1850–2000 (London, 2000), 49–109.
16 Ellecke Boehmer, introduction to Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys
(Oxford, 2004 [1908]), xviii–xxvii.
17 Glenn R. Wilkinson, Depictions and Images of War in Edwardian Newspapers
1899–1914 (London, 2003), 15–41; Paris, Warrior Nation, 49–82.
18 Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Public School Phenomenon (London, 1977), 409.
See also J. R. De S. Honey, Tom Brown’s Universe (London, 1977).
19 Rudyard Kipling, Stalky & Co. (London, 1994 [1899]), 214.
20 Gathorne-Hardy, The Public School Phenomenon, 213.
21 Philip Mason, The English Gentleman: The Rise and Fall of an Ideal (London,
1993), 218–219; David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy
(London, 1990), 487–498.
22 Mason, The English Gentleman, 210–211.
23 Quoted in Judd, Empire, 133.
24 Mark Connelly, Reaching for the Stars: A New History of Bomber Command in World
War II (London, 2001), 162.
25 G. D. Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and
Discipline in the Era of the First World War (London, 2000), 178–179.
26 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London, 2004), 184.
27 Robert Roberts, The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century
(Manchester, 1972), 143; Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (London,
1984 [1972]), 76; Judd, Empire, 133.
28 Terence Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa’, in Hobsbawn
and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, 215.
29 Bernard Crick, George Orwell: A Life (London, 1982), 139–175.
30 Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, 137–138.
232 S. Badsey
31 Dorothy Sheridan (ed.), Wartime Women: A Mass Observation Anthology (London,
2000), 4–5.
32 Richard Price, An Imperial War and the British Working Class: Working Class Atti-
tudes and Reactions to the Boer War 1899–1902 (London, 1972), 12–45.
33 Ian F. W. Beckett, The Amateur Military Tradition (Manchester, 1991), 200.
34 Quoted in J. E. Johnson, Full Circle, (London, 1980), 179.
35 Carman Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War
1899–1902 (Montreal, 1993), 5–6; Stephen Clarke, ‘Manufacturing Spontane-
ity?’ The Role of the Commandants in the Colonial Offers of Troops to the
South African War’, in Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey (eds), The Boer War: Army,
Nation and Empire (Canberra, 2000), 129–150.
36 Quoted from ‘With French to Kimberley’, in Andrew Paterson, The Works of
Banjo Paterson (Ware, 1995), 102.
37 Judd, Empire, 245.
38 Sanjoy Bhattacharaya, ‘Colonial India: Conflict, Shortage and Discontent’, in
John Bourne, Peter Liddle, and Ian Whitehead (eds), The Great World War
1914–1945 Volume 2: Who Won? Who Lost? (London, 2001), 182–183.
39 David Murphy, Ireland and the Crimean War (Dublin, 2002), 169–233.
40 Richard Doherty, Irish Men and Women in the Second World War (Dublin, 1999),
15–46; Richard Doherty and David Truesdale, Irish Winners of the Victoria Cross
(Dublin, 2000), 141–173.
41 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, 223–224.
42 Susan L. Carruthers, The Media at War (London, 2000), 2–3.
43 Daniel R. Headrick, The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in
the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1981), 204–206.
44 Jeremy Black, The English Press 1621–1861 (Thrupp, 2001), 177–200; Macken-
zie, Propaganda and Empire, 16–37; Asa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History
of the Media: From Guttenberg to the Internet (London, 2002).
45 I. F. Clarke, Voices Prophesying War: Future Wars 1763–3749 (Oxford, 1992), 27–38.
46 Pamphlet by D. M. Luckie, The Raid of the Russian Cruiser “Kaskowiski”, an Old
Story of Auckland (Wellington, 1894).
47 Christopher Pugsley, ‘New Zealand: “From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth” ’,
in Bourne, Liddle and Whitehead, The Great World War 1914–1945 Volume 2:
Who Won? Who Lost?, 214.
48 V. G. Kiernan, Colonial Empires and Armies 1815–1960 (Thrupp, 1982), 158.
49 John Keegan, ‘The Ashanti Campaign 1873–74’, in Brian Bond (ed.), Victorian
Military Campaigns (London, 1994), 194; Edward M. Spiers (ed.), Sudan: The
Reconquest Reappraised (London, 1998), 5.
50 Thomas Packenham, The Boer War (London, 1979), 32; Stephen Badsey, ‘War
Correspondents in the Boer War’, in John Gooch (ed.), The Boer War: Direction,
Experience and Image (London, 2000), 187–202.
51 G. W. Steevens (ed. Vernon Blackburn), From Capetown to Ladysmith: An Unfin-
ished Record of the South African War (Edinburgh, 1900), 176.
52 A. P. Wavell, Other Men’s Flowers (London, 1944), 15.
53 Read, The Power of News, 88–89, 134.
54 Sanders and Taylor, British Propaganda During the First World War 1914–18,
167–207.
55 Ibid., 152.
56 Stephen Badsey, ‘The Missing Western Front: British Politics, Strategy and Pro-
paganda in 1918’, in Mark Connelly and David Welch (eds), War and the Media:
Reportage and Propaganda (London, 2004), 47–64.
57 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688–1980 (Sydney,
1981), 125–126; see also John F. Williams, ANZACS, The Media and the Great War
(Sydney, 1999).
 Propaganda and the defence of empire 233
58 Tim Cook, ‘Documenting War and Forging Reputations: Sir Max Aitken and
the Canadian War Records Office in the First World War’, War in History,
10(2003): 265–295; see also Shane B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire
(Westport, CT, 1997).
59 Judd, Empire, 273–286; Taylor, The Projection of Britain, 103–109.
60 Stephen Koss, The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain: Volume 2: The Twen-
tieth Century (London, 1984), 657–659.
61 A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (London, 1972), 346–349, 748; Piers Brendon, The
Life and Death of the Press Barons (London, 1982), 154–179.
62 Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time (London, 1928).
63 Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 256; Philip M. Taylor, British Propaganda in
the Twentieth Century: Selling Democracy (Edinburgh, 1999), 76–78.
64 Taylor, The Projection of Britain, 3.
65 Bhattacharya, ‘Colonial India: Conflict, Shortage and Discontent’, 184.
66 Asa Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless 1927–1939: The History of Broadcasting in the
UK Volume II (Oxford, 1995), 342–362.
67 Nicholas John Cull, Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against Ameri-
can ‘Neutrality’ in World War II (Oxford, 1995), 45–46.
68 David Edgerton, England and the Aeroplane: An Essay on a Militant and Techno-
logical Nation (London, 1991), 18–22, 31–32.
69 Michael Paris, From the Wright Brothers to Top Gun: Aviation, Nationalism and
Popular Cinema (Manchester, 1995), 77 and 102.
70 James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda 1939–1945
(London, 1998), 144–148.
71 Read, The Power of News, 181–185.
72 George MacDonald Fraser, quoted in Stephen Badsey and Philip M. Taylor, ‘The
Experience of Manipulation: Propaganda in Press and Radio’, in Bourne, Liddle,
and Whitehead (eds), The Great World War 1914–45: Volume 2: Who Won, Who
Lost?, 47.
73 Richard Collier, The Warcos: The War Correspondents of World War II (London,
1989), 206.
74 Cull, Selling War, 4–32.
75 Ibid., 47.
76 Asa Briggs, The War of Words: The History of Broadcasting in the UK Volume III
(Oxford, 1970), 177, 494–497.
77 Briggs, The War of Words, 508–510.
78 Bhattacharya, ‘Colonial India: Conflict, Shortage and Discontent’, 192 and
footnote 62.
79 MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, 256–257.
80 Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War 1948–1977
(Thrupp, 1998), 84–93; Susan L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British
Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency 1944–1960 (London,
1995), 217–259.
81 Tony Shaw, Eden, Suez and the Mass Media: Propaganda and Persuasion
During the Suez Crisis (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 189–196; Michael Nichol-
son, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the
Cold War (London, 1997), 88–90.
12 The colonial empire and
imperial defence
Ashley Jackson

The term ‘colonial empire’ refers to the fifty or so colonies that were ruled
through the Colonial Office, as opposed to the ‘white’ Dominions and
India, both separate branches of the imperial tree. This straightforward
definition is blurred around the edges, however, because the Colonial
Office had a major role in some territories that were not officially colonies,
such as the Mandates established in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific
following the First World War, as well as the Southern African High Com-
mission Territories which in 1925 were transferred from the Colonial
Office to the new Dominions Office. In this chapter, there will not be a
religious devotion to a fixed definition, because it is important to include
some of the empire’s constitutional oddities in an examination of the colo-
nial empire and imperial defence, such as the joint-ruled ‘condominiums’
of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Anglo-French New Hebrides, the pri-
vately ruled Sarawak, and areas of ‘informal empire’ such as Shanghai.
Traditionally, the colonial empire has played second fiddle to the
Dominions and India in studies of imperial defence.1 To an extent this is
understandable, for it was the Dominions and India that provided
the empire with its main non-British defence assets. The omission of the
colonies also reflects the fact that they were voiceless compared with the
other constituent parts of the empire; the Dominions were self-governing
and, as the twentieth century progressed, increasingly involved in imper-
ial defence decision-making (even sending representatives to the Ver-
sailles Peace Conference as part of the British Empire Delegation). India,
while ruled autocratically at the highest levels by British authorities, had
always been represented in imperial defence counsels by the Viceroy, the
Secretary of State for India, and the Commander-in-Chief India, and the
Raj itself had gathered to itself a huge network of influence, as well as
defence responsibilities, throughout the Indian Ocean.2 It was, in effect,
a sub-empire within the British Empire. In contrast, the colonies were
ruled directly from London through the Colonial Office and did what
they were bid.
The colonies poor billing in studies of imperial defence also stems from
the fact that they were considered consumers of imperial defence rather
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 235
than contributors, though the amount that the colonial empire was to give
in the empire’s major wars (and the little that the Dominions were pre-
pared to commit in peacetime) makes this a questionable assumption.
This chapter suggests that the colonies were at the heart of imperial
defence for a number of reasons. First, imperial defence was all about
defending colonies (as well as Dominions, sea routes, and the Northwest
Frontier), and many colonies had been gained precisely because of their
imperial defence utility. Second, the colonies contributed a huge amount
to imperial defence, in terms of military and civilian manpower and indus-
trial and primary resources, and the colonies supplied more troops to the
imperial cause during the Second World War than all of the Dominions
combined. Third, the colonial contribution to imperial defence grew in
importance during the twentieth century, moving from the peripheries of
imperial defence thinking to the very core as Britain came to rely more
heavily on colonial bases and manpower resources. Fourth, colonies were
essential bases for the armed forces that gave meaning to the term ‘imper-
ial defence’ and acted as regional power centres from which imperial
power could be projected.
Given the constitutional and political realities of imperial rule, British
subjects in the colonies had no representation at anything above the local
level. They could therefore justifiably claim to depend upon British pro-
tection against external aggression, for, unlike the Dominions, they had
no political autonomy, and so the ‘self government begets self defence’
aphorism did not apply.3 Thus, a fundamental feature of the nexus
between Britain and its colonial subjects was the provision of security from
external aggression as well as the maintenance of internal law and order.
Imperial defence meant protecting colonial subjects from the arbitrary
attentions of foreign powers. It was the breach of this unspoken contract
that did so much damage to Britain’s reputation, and the legitimacy of
Britain’s presence, when millions of colonial subjects found themselves at
the mercy of the Imperial Japanese Army in December 1941.
The colonial empire had always been central to imperial defence,
because it required defending and because it was, in turn, responsible for
helping defend and police the empire. Until 1854, the war and colonial
offices were combined beneath a single Secretary of State for war and the
colonies. It was as a platform for force projection that the colonies con-
tributed most consistently to imperial defence. Colonies provided bar-
racks for the army and ports for the navy. They were watering holes, repair
yards, recreational retreats, ammunition dumps, fuel reservoirs, sheltered
harbours, administrative centres, internment centres, cable and wireless
links, and, from the First World War, airbases.4
Colonies were also central to imperial defence because they were
responsible for their own internal security and that of their borders,
saving the regular army a job and allowing it to retain its small peacetime
size. Colonial military and paramilitary formations were formed primarily
236 A. Jackson
to defend the borders and prevent internal unrest, though a tradition
soon developed of expanding these forces in times of general war for
service elsewhere in the empire. The success of this system depended
upon the contumely attached to calling in help from above. A young dis-
trict officer facing unrest in a hinterland province would suffer a severe
bout of career blight should he feel it necessary to telegraph for the dis-
patch of a platoon of native levies and their white officer and NCO from
the coastal capital (better to sort it out Sanders of the River style); similarly,
a governor, worrying in Government House about reports of disturbances
up country, would be in for some unpleasant scrutiny from his Whitehall
masters if he should think it necessary to call in imperial troops from
Britain.5
The colonies were always pivotal in imperial defence because they pro-
vided strategically located bases in an age where power projection relied
upon local concentrations of troops, ports of call for warships, and
airstrips. The extension of Britain’s protective shield to distant Dominions
depended upon colonial bases. While Australia, for example, might have
army, militia, and naval forces at its disposal, these were never sufficient to
withstand the determined attentions of a first-class enemy. So the conti-
nent’s security depended upon the British Army and, in particular, the
Royal Navy (and later the ability to reinforce the region by air, reliant
upon a string of colonial air bases). In order to get to Australia should an
attack ever come, those military instruments of British power depended
upon domination of the sea routes and secure air routes, and regional
power points that could provide safe harbours, infrastructure, airstrips,
and transit camps as forces journeyed east. Colonial bases performed this
vital function, without which the Australasian Dominions would have been
utterly marooned.
Colonies were an integral part of the British Army’s development in the
nineteenth century as an imperial force. Colonies were important in fur-
nishing the army with regional strongholds from which to operate. In
1842, for example, British regiments, excluding those in Britain, the
Dominions, and India, were stationed in Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda,
Ceylon, Gibraltar, Jamaica, Malta, Mauritius, St Helena, Sierra Leone, and
Trinidad.6 In 1881, British troops, excluding those in Britain, the Domin-
ions, and India, were stationed in Barbados (813 troops), Bermuda
(2,200), Bahamas (101), British Guiana (246), British Honduras (247),
Ceylon (1,224), Cyprus (420), Gibraltar (4,158), the Gold Coast (191),
Hong Kong (1,167), Jamaica (778), Malta (5,626), Mauritius (355), St
Helena (210), Sierra Leone (441), the Straits Settlements (1,028), and
Trinidad (121).7
In extending its writ around the world, to enhance British presence in a
region as well as to contribute to the defence of vulnerable colonies, the
British Army always made extensive and effective use of locally recruited
formations. In the British Empire, locally recruited forces performed two
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 237
functions: they contributed towards internal security and helped the
British Army in defending the colony, by forming coastal artillery units or
infantry companies detailed to defend strategic points should the colony
ever be attacked. The growth of colonial military forces went hand in
hand with British expansion, and the formation of a regiment was at the
top of the list when the British arrived on a distant shore, along with the
creation of a school, a racecourse, a club, and a church. Thus, when
British sovereignty alighted in Fiji in 1874, it was not long before the Fiji
Armed Constabulary was formed, and in 1898, its commander, Colonel
Claude Francis, organised the Fiji Volunteer Corps. This force, dedicated
to internal security, soon proved its value when the empire needed man-
power overseas. In the First World War, Fiji sent labourers to France, and
in the Second World War, the Fiji Military Forces played an important role
in defending their homeland and operating with American and New
Zealand forces in the Pacific war.
Africa was home to numerous locally recruited forces, which came to
form the bedrock of internal and border security. Private enterprises such
as the British South Africa Company and the Imperial British East Africa
Company formed their own security forces, and the British South Africa
Police being created to accompany Cecil Rhodes’ Pioneer Column into
Mashonaland in 1890. It then took part in the Matabele War of 1893, the
suppression of the Ndebele and Shona rebellions of 1896, and the Anglo-
Boer War. During the First World War, it served with distinction in the
East African campaign and, in 1914, captured Schuckmansberg in
German South-West Africa. Most African colonial forces were raised in the
name of the Crown, most famously the King’s African Rifles (KAR) and
the Royal West African Frontier Force. The Central Africa Rifles was estab-
lished in 1891 around a nucleus of Sikhs and renamed the Central African
Rifles in 1898 and the KAR four years later.8 In the First World War, the
unit’s strength rose to twenty-two battalions, falling back in the 1930s to
about 3,000 men. The Second World War brought further expansion for
the KAR, climbing to forty-three battalions (there was also an all-white
Kenya Regiment). The West African Frontier Force (it became ‘Royal’ in
1925 and the King became its Colonel-in-Chief) was formed at the behest
of Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain in 1897 to provide Britain with
a more assertive presence in the light of aggressive French expansion in
the region.
British Africa provides many other examples of locally raised defence
forces that were used beyond colonial borders during world wars and colo-
nial emergencies. The Sudan Defence Force (SDF) was established in
1924, and by the outbreak of the Second World War, numbered over
4,000 men. Its role was to defend the condominium’s extensive borders,
particularly against Italian incursions. During the Second World War, the
SDF took part in operations against Italian forces in Libya and Abyssinia,
and the territory was also an important centre of air power in the region,
238 A. Jackson
being home to an RAF group. Other long-standing African units were the
Somaliland Camel Corps, raised in 1912 to check inter-tribal fighting, and
the Northern Rhodesia Regiment. Colonies could also provide specialist
military expertise during imperial campaigns, as when members of the
Bakgatla tribe, split by the colonial border between South Africa and
Bechuanaland, acted as scouts during the Anglo-Boer War and when
Dyaks from Borneo were employed as trackers during the Malayan Emer-
gency.9
Other parts of the colonial empire followed the same pattern. The West
Indies had contributed infantry regiments to the British Army for scores
of years before African units were first raised, and West Indian formations
served in both world wars.10 The Mauritius Territorial Force was formed in
the 1930s to supplement the British garrison on the island, manning
coastal defence artillery and forming an infantry unit to repel an enemy
raid. During the Second World War, it became The Mauritius Regiment,
and one of its battalions was part of the garrison established in Madagas-
car after the British invasion.11 If the men of the Colonial Administrative
Service were the steel frame around which the British colonial empire was
built, these locally recruited military units were the cold steel that but-
tressed that frame.
As well as their locally recruited or imperial army units, most colonies
had other forms of military and paramilitary organisations on the books,
and colonies could present a surprisingly militarised environment. The
Gold Coast in the mid-1920s, for example, had a range of forces at its dis-
posal in addition to the Gold Coast Regiment (part of the Royal West
African Frontier Force).12 There was a military reserve of ex-servicemen
who could be mobilised quickly, and a territorial defence force with a
European and an African section, the former including machine gun
companies. In addition to the general police, there was a paramilitary
Northern Territories Constabulary, recruited mainly from military veter-
ans; an Escort Police; separate mine, railway, and marine police branches;
and an armed Preventive Force serving on the frontiers as part of the
customs service. Many of the Europeans in the colony possessed firearms
and practiced in rifle clubs supported by government funds.
Mauritius provides a good example of how a colony was affected by the
ebb and flow of imperial defence requirements. The island, of great stra-
tegic importance during the era of Anglo-French rivalry in the east and an
important mid-ocean port of call in the pre-Suez Canal era, was home to a
permanent British garrison. During the Indian Mutiny, the garrison was
reduced, and the men sent to India, a depletion repeated during the Zulu
War of 1879–1880. The garrison was mobilised at the time of the Fashoda
incident in 1898, and the Anglo-Boer War saw the British elements
reduced and units of the Central African Rifles arrive to take their place.
The garrison was mobilised during the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War as the
Baltic Fleet steamed across the Indian Ocean towards its Tsushima doom
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 239
[Port Louis was defended at the time by No. 57 Company Royal Garrison
Artillery (RGA), No. 1 Company Ceylon-Mauritius Battalion RGA, and the
Hong Kong and Singapore Battalion RGA].
During the First World War, the island did all that it could to support
the war effort.13 It was a classic colonial role in a world war; on the one
hand, the island contributed to the war effort overseas, and on the other
hand, measures were taken to reduce its vulnerability to enemy attack. A
special tax was levied on the sugar crop and contributed to war funds,
efforts were made to reduce dependence upon imported food, money was
raised to buy the British Army and Royal Navy thirty aircraft, a naval wire-
less facility was constructed, and electric searchlights were installed. The
thousand-strong garrison was again drawn down, and a Volunteer Defence
Force established as partial compensation as well as the Mauritius Volun-
teer Artillery and Engineers. Over 1,700 local men were sent to
Mesopotamia as military labourers to work on the inland waterways during
the imperial campaign against the Turks, and over 520 white Mauritians
served on the Western Front. In the Second World War, over 6,000 Mauri-
tians joined the British Army’s Royal Pioneer Corps serving in the Middle
East, thousands more joined the Mauritius Regiment and the home guard
unit, the Mauritius Defence Force, and drafts of Mauritian women served
in the Middle East as Auxiliary Territorial Service clerks and secretaries.
Other Mauritians were employed by the RAF in its Marine Crafts Section,
working at the new seaplane anchorage, and over 8,000 were recruited into
a civil labour corps to ensure that extensive defence works on the island,
including the construction of a Royal Naval Air Station, were completed. A
battalion of the KAR arrived to bolster the island’s defences given the
threat of a Japanese invasion, a commitment that remained until 1960.14
As providers of military labour, the colonies were a godsend for the
British government and deserve as much recognition for this as the
Anzacs or the Indian Army for their feats of arms at Gallipoli and in
Burma. As well as furnishing the empire with fighting units (over 80,000
Africans fought in Burma, and the East African campaign was dominated
by African infantrymen), the colonies provided the men of the logistical
tail upon which famous fighting units, such as the Eighth Army,
depended.15 The colonies and other regions of empire became particu-
larly prized as a source of military labour during imperial wars. Britain’s
presence in China secured the transit of thousands of Chinese people to
work in South Africa at the time of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902.
During the First World War, the British Empire really showed its capacity
to move people; over 150,000 Chinese people were taken to the Western
Front as labourers, and hundreds of thousands of Arabs, recruited mainly
from Egypt, were employed as labourers in the Sinai campaign.16 Still in
an era of human porterage, the East African campaign employed hun-
dreds of thousands of African labourers, and over 30,000 Southern
Africans joined the South African Native Labour Contingent for service in
240 A. Jackson
France. At Gallipoli, the 29th British Division was supported by a military
labourer battalion comprising Palestinian Jews.
As well as being garrison centres for the British Army and its local sup-
plementary forces, colonies provided the Royal Navy with the bases upon
which its global reach and ubiquity depended. They were the infrastruc-
ture without which the navy could not have sustained its presence around
the world, be it performing anti-slaving patrols off the east and west coasts
of Africa, hunting pirates in the Indonesian archipelago, or searching for
German U-boats in the central Mediterranean. By 1914, shore bases over-
seas included HMS Cormorant at Gibraltar, headquarters of the East
Atlantic Station, as well as the submarine base HMS Rapid. HMS St Angelo
and Egmont were shore bases in Malta. HMS Alert was the depot ship in the
Persian Gulf, and HMS Tamar, the naval headquarters of the China
Station in Hong Kong (as she was until British withdrawal in 1997). The
North America and West Indies Station was served by HMS Terror on
Bermuda along with bases in Canada and Newfoundland, and HMS Pur-
suivant in the Falklands served the South East Coast Station.17 In the same
way that the British Army received assistance from locally raised forces, so
too did the navy.
Colonies such as Ceylon, Kenya, Tanganyika, and Trinidad had their
own naval forces for operations in territorial waters, and during the
Second World War, they were able to take over local convoy escort work as
well as mine clearance from the Royal Navy, allowing it to concentrate
stretched resources in other areas. Locally recruited naval forces also
helped man coastal batteries and the Port War Signals Stations that super-
vised the security of imperial ports and ensured the peaceful intent of vis-
iting vessels. Colonies also operated as key links on the global sea routes
that ensured imperial trade and security. During the Second World War,
colonies such as Ceylon, Gibraltar, and Sierra Leone formed vital points in
the empire’s convoy network alongside ports such as Cape Town, Halifax,
Liverpool, and Sydney.
One of the main roles of colonies in the imperial defence structure was
to serve as bases for the warships of the Royal Navy. Some colonies served as
the headquarters of important naval fleets and standing commitments.
Thus, Bermuda was home to the North America and West Indies Station
and Malta to the Mediterranean Fleet. Ceylon was home to the East Indies
Station, responsible for policing the vast Indian Ocean as far afield as the
Swahili coast, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. Until the
closure of the East Indies Station in 1958, British warships continued, much
as before, to mount East African and Persian Gulf cruises, showing the flag
on land, playing the locals at cricket and rugby, putting the band ashore to
impress or the Marines to quell disturbances, performing gunnery demon-
strations, and holding ‘harbour lights’ events and hosting the ubiquitous
cocktail parties. Naval visits were also used by colonial garrisons as an
opportunity for exercises, the garrison, for example, attempting to defend
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 241
the capital from a party of Royal Marines put ashore by a visiting cruiser.
The Royal Navy was the cornerstone of the grand ‘illusion’ of Pax Britannica,
and this is how it was maintained. In their turn, the colonies were the stage
upon which the navy performed.
Another colony that served as headquarters to one of the navy’s major
overseas fleets was Hong Kong. The China Station had its home in Hong
Kong and Singapore (with a gunboat base at Hankow) and was respons-
ible for maritime security in the South China Sea and on China’s great
rivers, particularly the Yangtze and the West River. The China Station was
also intended to check Russian naval power in northern East Asia. The
station’s strength usually comprised a number of destroyers and sloops,
perhaps a squadron of elderly cruisers, and a more modern cruiser as flag-
ship. It also comprised the quaint but proven shallow draft river gunboats
(with splendid names such as HMS Aphis, Bee, Dragonfly, Glowworm, Lady-
bird, Moorhen, Peterel, and Widgeon). Weighing up to 645 tons, river gun-
boats looked more like Mississippi steamers but packed an array of
weapons – twelve-pounders, three-inch anti-aircraft guns, Lewis guns, and
even six-inch guns.18 Some of the earlier gunboats had originally been
built for service with Kitchener on the Nile, and others for action on the
Danube during the First World War. The job of these gunboats in eastern
waters, from the end of the nineteenth century until the very day of
Japan’s assault on British colonies in December 1941, was to patrol the
inland waterways protecting British interests and providing the general
security needed for the continuance of trading activities. The China
Station also provided important force projection ashore, for example con-
tributing significantly to the relief of the European legations in Peking
during the Boxer Rebellion.19 As war with Japan loomed in the 1930s, the
China Station was tasked with the far more daunting role of providing a
tripwire should a day of reckoning ever come.20
The colonial empire also provided bases for the projection of air power
and the development of rapid imperial communications (pioneered by
Imperial Airways). In the 1920s and 1930s, numerous colonies became
staging posts on the air route that was developed to connect Britain to the
Far East and Australasia via the Mediterranean. Air bases were built in
Gibraltar, Malta, Iraq, Oman, India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and the
Sudan. Another air route that relied on colonial bases was the Takoradi Air
Route running from the Gold Coast to Egypt. It was pioneered as a civil air
route by Imperial Airways in 1936. Its strategic potential was noted at the
time, and when Italy entered the war in 1940 and made the Mediterranean
supply route hazardous, it was decided to use the trans-Africa route to rein-
force the Western Desert Air Force, delivering over 10,000 valuable aircraft
to the region.
In the Persian Gulf and Arabian regions, the RAF became the senior
armed service in the post-First World War period, and much of its work in
the region was conducted from colonial bases, particularly RAF Khormaksar
242 A. Jackson
and RAF Sheikh Othman in Aden, and facilities on offshore islands such as
Masirah and Sharjah in Oman. In Aden, a responsibility of the Colonial
Office since its transfer from Indian administration in 1937, hundreds of
local people supported the base, as labourers or as part of the Aden Protec-
torate Levies, formed in 1928, which was responsible for guarding the RAF
bases.
British colonies contributed to imperial defence by the very fact of
being British, because any colony owned by a rival or enemy power was a
potential point of strength from which to harry British shipping, threaten
British interests on land, or beam wireless messages to hostile vessels.21
Many British colonies had been gained purely because of their strategic
significance, and the role that they could perform if in the hands of
Britain’s enemies. Gibraltar was taken from the Spanish for this reason,
and Ceylon from the Dutch and Mauritius from the French during the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. At the Peace of Paris in 1814, when
the colonial bargaining chips were cast upon the table, Réunion was
restored to France, but neighbouring Mauritius retained by the British.
This was simply because Mauritius had port facilities that could harbour
warships and Réunion did not.
This policy of colonial assertion meant that ‘East of the Cape of Good
Hope after 1824 there was no foreign port from which an enemy
squadron could effectively challenge British command of the Indian
Ocean’.22 This included control of seemingly unimportant territories,
though ones that could acquire strategic importance, such as the Cocos
Islands, Diego Garcia and the Chagos Archipelago, and the Maldives.
Other colonies, while not gained during the colonial exchange that was a
feature of imperial world wars from the eighteenth to the twentieth
century, were nonetheless taken because of the role they could perform in
imperial defence. Labuan was bagged by the Admiralty in 1846 because of
its convenient location on a key shipping route between Singapore and
China (closing the 1,500-mile gap in the chain of harbours circling the
world), and Penang and Aden claimed by the East India Company
because of their potential as transit camps, refuelling stations, and forward
bases in the ongoing war against piracy. In 1878, Cyprus was prised from
the Ottoman sultan as the British took steps to ensure a firm territorial
base in a region threatened by Russia’s successful march to within a
stone’s throw of Constantinople and the Dardanelles.
Numerous colonies took great pride in their importance as ‘fortress’
colonies, colonies that had an enduring importance as links in the imper-
ial defence chain. These included Bermuda, Gibraltar, Malta, Mauritius,
and Singapore. Some, such as Gibraltar and Malta, maintained the prac-
tice of appointing a military, as opposed to a civilian, governor. From
1905, the crest of Mauritius incorporated the phrase ‘Star and Key of the
Indian Ocean’, reflecting pride in the island’s pivotal strategic importance
in an earlier phase of global warfare.
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 243
Malta was, by any index, one of the most important colonies in the
imperial defence matrix and serves as an example of a colonial career in
the service of Britain’s overseas interests. Britain was invited to take over
the island by the local notables in 1798 in order to end the French occu-
pation, and Nelson duly achieved this transfer of authority by besieging
Valetta in the following year. Malta duly became a Crown colony and
began its life as a British strategic asset. The island stronghold was useful
for intervening against regional rulers, such as Mehmet Ali of Egypt (or
Colonel Nasser), and for concentrating troops in order to send a warning
to other Great Powers interested in the Mediterranean, such as Russia.
First and foremost, Malta was the home of the Mediterranean Fleet. This
fleet defended Britain’s extensive interests in the Mediterranean region
and was the steel behind Britain’s claim to be the premier power in the
inland sea.
In the 1920s, Malta’s importance as a nodal point in the imperial
defence system was enhanced when it became the main base for the fleet
that would be sent east should Japan ever become a menace. Malta was ten
days sailing closer than British ports, and there was at the time no port east
of Suez that could accommodate modern battleships (until the completion
of the Singapore facilities in the 1930s).23 Malta’s major defence assets
from a British point of view were the two main harbours at Valetta. After
expansion, they could accommodate the expanded Mediterranean Fleet
and its support vessels. The naval base featured extensive repair and
storage facilities and employed 14,000 Maltese workers. The colony was
also home to an army garrison, which in 1925 consisted of two battalions of
British troops, with artillery and engineers support, supplemented by the
locally raised King’s Own Malta Regiment and the Royal Malta Artillery,
which helped man the coastal defences. A seaplane base had been estab-
lished during the First World War at Kalafrana, and a landing ground
developed at Hal Far for the Fleet Air Arm. During the 1920s, Malta’s rela-
tionship with the RAF, which was to base over 600 aircraft on the island at
the height of the Second World War, was in its infancy. Malta’s finest hour
as an imperial defence asset came during the Second World War, when it
acted as a base for submarines and surface vessels attacking Axis trans-
Mediterranean shipping and for aircraft attacking Axis ports and ships or
flying reconnaissance missions (including those which located the Italian
battlefleet anchored at Taranto) and as a staging post for aircraft travelling
to the Middle East and Far East.
Colonies were involved in the business of imperial defence because
they were marked by the martial traditions of empire that were a charac-
teristic of society in the Dominions and Britain itself. Though only a few
colonies had substantial white populations, all had a white community,
and the governor and his district officers ensured that the great anniver-
saries of British military endeavour were celebrated and that the locals
knew about the military prowess that underpinned Britain’s dominion
244 A. Jackson
over palm and pine. Among the Europeans in the colonies – administra-
tors, settlers, traders, and the like – were a fair sprinkling of former mili-
tary men, many of whom maintained their preparedness should the
colours ever call for a final flourish to quell a ‘native uprising’ or fight the
king’s enemies overseas.24 White communities throughout the colonial
world, no matter how small, displayed the same imperial patriotism
common in the settler territories. Imperial wars also led to more colonial
settlement, as colonies and Dominions offered ex-servicemen generous
terms to start new lives in places such as Kenya and Southern Rhodesia.25
The rhetoric of imperial defence and loyalty, of serving the monarch
when in need, and the display of Union Flags and bunting at appropriate
moments were features of life in Jamaica and the Seychelles as much as in
Canada or New Zealand. Southern Rhodesians, displaying Union Flags
from all major buildings in the capital Salisbury in 1914, worried about
how their war effort compared with that of the Dominions until two drafts
of the Rhodesia Regiment had joined regiments in Britain and cast the
colony’s ratio of soldiers to settler population in a very favourable light
(this was not just imperial loyalty; the Southern Rhodesians dream was to
be granted the self-government enjoyed by the Dominions, so they wanted
to show how well they measured up).26 At the same time, the administra-
tors of neighbouring Bechuanaland thrilled at the prospect of forming
new defence units to guard the vast Protectorate’s borders from German
encroachment, to ensure that Germans did not escape German East
Africa to German South West Africa and to meet any ‘native uprisings’
stimulated by endemic rumours and fear of the consequences of a Euro-
pean war transported thousands of miles to the African veldt.27
A great deal was done to ensure that colonies were engaged with mili-
tary forces during times of war, for example by the purchase of individual
Spitfires or of entire bomber squadrons during the Second World War,
fundraising for sailors, prisoner of war, or bomb victim charities, and the
sponsorship of namesake naval vessels. Uganda raised £83,000 to pay for
the Uganda Squadron of the RAF, and the cruiser HMS Uganda was gifted
inscribed silver bugles, a silk ensign, African drums, a coffee machine, and
a regular supply of Ugandan coffee. Mauritius gifted its namesake cruiser
a silver table centrepiece depicting the 1810 Battle of Grand Port fought
in Mauritian waters as well as a piano for the wardroom.
Colonial place names and street names often indicated a colony’s associ-
ation with the global military exertions of the British empire. Mauritius had
its Arsenal, Balaclava, Gunners Quoin, Sebastopol, Signal Mountain, and
Winston Churchill Bridge. As well as contributing men, material, and infra-
structure during colonial and global wars, colonies were often touched by
the proximity of war. On the Falkland Islands, war memorials bear testa-
ment to the islanders who lost their lives serving with British forces in
distant lands and to the sailors – over 1,000 of them German – who lost
their lives in the Battle of the Falklands in 1914.
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 245
Colonies could become the centre of military operations during imper-
ial crises and perform the role of regional power centres.28 Indian troops
were dispatched to Cyprus and Malta via the Suez Canal in 1878 in order
to send a potent message to the Russians, creeping closer to the Dard-
anelles (the first time that Indian troops had been deployed in Europe).
Aden was used as a base for Indian Army intervention in Abyssinia in 1867
and again in 1940–1941 when British Somaliland was evacuated, and then
retaken, in the struggle against Italy. In the West Indies, numerous British
colonies were developed as military bases as the Americans developed
their Caribbean Sea Frontier to protect shipping and hunt U-boats.29
With the loss of the strategic Singapore base in February 1942 and the
establishment of Japanese control over Burma and the Bay of Bengal,
Ceylon enjoyed a remarkable recrudescence as a strategic base.30 Over
20,000 troops were rushed to defend the island, as well as precious Hurri-
canes, and it gradually became the forward base for imperial troops fight-
ing the Japanese in Burma. It was the headquarters for most Special
Operations Executive (SOE) operations in Japanese-occupied Burma,
Malaya, the Dutch East Indies and French Indo-China, and home to the
Eastern Fleet, the Royal Navy’s main strength east of Suez. From 1943,
Ceylon was home to the most senior Allied soldier in the theatre, Admiral
Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia.
The RAF patrolled the Indian Ocean shipping lanes from Ceylon and flew
bombing missions against Japanese ground and maritime forces. The port
of Colombo also became a significant centre for the repair and refit of
naval and merchant vessels following the loss of Hong Kong and Singa-
pore. One Colombo-based company repaired an astonishing 167 major
warships, 332 minor warships, and 1,932 merchant vessels during the
course of the war, as well as producing over 39,000 articles of furniture
(mostly for use by the huge staff that followed in Mountbatten’s wake)
and dummy Hurricanes, Bofors guns, and wireless transmitters for the
benefit of Japanese aerial reconnaissance.31
Another important role for Ceylon during the war came when it
replaced Hong Kong and Singapore as Britain’s most important easterly
intelligence-gathering outpost. The colonies had contributed much to the
development of Britain’s intelligence reach in the interwar years. During
the Second World War, with Hong Kong and Singapore lost to the enemy,
facilities in Ceylon and Kenya became important, as did a secret facility in
Mauritius, which intercepted Vichy and Japanese diplomatic and military
radio traffic, while also utilising its position as the hub of a regional cable
network to inspect Vichy cable traffic.32
The colonial role in imperial defence was articulated and formalised in
the interwar period. In the 1920s, the Committee of Imperial Defence
considered the requirements for defending Britain’s overseas territories,
particularly those containing valuable facilities such as ports. In consulta-
tion with military experts, colonial governments were to assess the likelihood
246 A. Jackson
of an attack, the likely scale of attack, and the means of providing defence
and maintaining communications throughout the territory. Every colonial
government was thus obliged to think about its role in a war and to plan
for it, as every colony had to produce a Defence Scheme, which was submit-
ted to the Overseas Defence Committee in London, a subcommittee of the
Cabinet’s Committee of Imperial Defence. In addition to the preparation
of the Defence Scheme, it became standard Colonial Office practice to
circulate memoranda on general civil and military defence matters to the
governors.
In July 1938, for example, a memorandum dealing with the role of the
colonial empire in imperial defence was circulated. The need to maintain
a local armed force in every colony was emphasised. Other memoranda
dealt with subjects such as food supply in wartime, the control of ship-
ping and wireless transmissions, civil defence measures in Malaya,
defence policy in the Somaliland Protectorate, denial to the enemy of the
oilfields of Sarawak and Brunei, and internal security in Tanganyika
(where a sizeable German community existed). The Defence Scheme
prepared by each colonial government was divided into sections. The first
chapter described the area to be defended, the reasons for doing so, the
likely scale and form of attack the colony might expect, and the system of
command. It also provided a statement of the defence forces available.
The second chapter dealt with detailed defence planning, and sub-
sequent chapters with matters such as passive air defence and internal
disturbances. In preparing for a future war, colonies threatened by
enemy attack and possible occupation made plans for a scorched earth
policy to deny the enemy valuable resources (destroying sugar industry
equipment in Mauritius, for example, and torching oil wells in Sarawak).
SOE were active in territories such as Malaya, Mauritius, and Shanghai
preparing ‘stay behind’ teams to harry an occupier and attempt to main-
tain communications with British forces elsewhere in the region.
The preparation of the Defence Scheme was a useful exercise, as it made
every colonial administration aware of what might happen, and what actions
it might take, to protect its people in the event of war and to contribute to
the wider imperial war effort. Measures might include preparing air raid
shelters, blackout regulations, protecting strategic sites such as railway
bridges, and striving for food self-sufficiency. Nevertheless, ultimately, the
defence of each colony depended upon the time-honoured central plank of
British global power, the Royal Navy. Thinking had changed little since the
creation of the Colonial Defence Committee in 1885. Because of Britain’s
control of the sea, colonies need only prepare small local defences in case
of bombardment from a raider or an assault by a small detachment of
enemy troops. Though the individual colonies of the British Empire were
thus not unprepared for war, paper plans and a state of readiness would
ultimately be of little avail if the Royal Navy was unable to come to the
rescue of a colonial outpost besieged by enemy forces.
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 247
After the Second World War, the colonial empire became more import-
ant in British plans for imperial defence and Cold War security. The war
had proved the huge value of the colonial empire as a source of human and
material resources, and in the penurious years that were to come, their
produce, particularly their dollar-earning exports, became invaluable. India
had gone; now, the jewel in the imperial crown was to be found in the
rubber and tin-rich colonial territories of South-East Asia and its supporting
gems in tropical Africa. Here, it was hoped that the new era of Colonial
Development and Welfare funding would enable similarly impressive contri-
butions to the imperial coffers. It was also expected that the colonies would
become more of a feature in the provision of imperial defence. The Domin-
ions were behaving much more like independent states, and India had
become an independent state, and showed little inclination to play the role
the British had in mind (that of a loyal Commonwealth ally).
The colonial empire was called upon to fill the void left by the loss of
India as a base and a source of troops. With the British Army having to
perform traditional imperial duties without the help of the Indian Army,
the colonies were called upon to replace British troops in key static roles.
Thus, a 3,600-strong High Commission Territories Corps recruited from
Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland was formed in 1946, each
soldier contracting to spend two-and-a-half years serving in the Middle
East. Similarly, after the Second World War, the Indian Ocean colonies
remained open for recruitment for military service in the Middle East,
and thousands of Mauritians, Rodriguans, and Seychellois remained in
the region until the withdrawal from Egypt, forming the backbone of the
British Army’s pioneer support.
Britain’s withdrawal from Palestine in 1948 and its increasingly unten-
able position in Egypt (and failure to get a mandate over Libya) raised
Kenya’s strategic importance. Millions of pounds were spent on military
facilities in the colony, particularly at Mackinnon Road, before these plans
were aborted. Nevertheless, the shift from Middle East bases to colonial
bases east of Suez reached a milestone in the early 1960 when Aden
became home to Middle East Command. Colonial bases became the step-
ping stones for the RAF’s island strategy for power projection in the Indian
Ocean, with Masirah, Socotra, the Seychelles, the Maldives, and the Cocos
Islands all featured in the RAF’s staging system connecting Britain and the
Mediterranean to South-East Asia and Australia.
The colonial empire was of growing value in the imperial defence set
up. With the Dominions and India maturing as autonomous states, the
colonies remained uncomplicated by the din of local politics and there-
fore more tractable when it came to defence arrangements. When, for
example, the Dominions refused to follow London’s lead over Chanak or
lobbied for the termination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, or India
baulked at footing its traditional external defence bill, at least the colonies
could be counted upon to play the game and do Britain’s bidding.
248 A. Jackson
Nevertheless, even some of the key strategic colonies in the imperial
defence system were afflicted by political difficulties that compromised
their value. This was a growing problem as the twentieth century, with its
theme of nationalism, developed. Malta grew in importance as a naval
base for the Mediterranean Fleet and warships detailed to reinforce the
Far East just when Maltese nationalism and the influence of fascist Italy
were becoming a problem in the 1930s; Cyprus and Kenya, both viewed as
strategic bastions with imperial and Cold War utility as Britain’s position
in the Middle East weakened in the 1950s, became less attractive when
nationalism and counterinsurgency marred their internal affairs; and in
the 1960s, the value of Aden, one of only two remaining imperial strong-
holds east of Suez, was undermined by Arab nationalism. Despite these
difficulties, the colonies remained central to British strategic defence
thinking until the end of empire and after and deserve consideration as
more than mere appendages to the Dominions and India when imperial
defence is studied.

Notes
1 For example, see the traditional Dominions and India focus in Peter Bur-
roughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, in Andrew Porter (ed.), The Oxford
History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999),
320–45, and Anthony Clayton, ‘ “Deceptive Might”: Imperial Defence and
Security, 1900–1968’, in Judith Brown and William Roger Louis (eds), The
Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford,
1999), 280–305.
2 It was India, not Britain, that developed and garrisoned many of the empire’s
growing interests in the Persian Gulf, Middle East, and East Africa, for
example, providing ‘British’ representatives and troops for Zanzibar, the Gulf
states, and Persia, sending 10,000 troops to conquer Mauritius and Rodrigues
from the French, and mounting the 1867 expedition against the Abyssinian
emperor. Indian Army officers were also to the fore in the exploration of
Africa. See Robert Blyth, The Empire of the Raj: India, Eastern Africa, and the
Middle East, 1858–1947 (Basingstoke, 2003).
3 N. H. Gibb, Origins of Imperial Defence (1955).
4 From Napoleon to Cetshwayo and the Shah of Iran, the Prime Minister of
Yugoslavia, and King Freddie Mutesa of Buganda, Britain had an impressive
tradition of using remote colonies as prisons for political opponents. A study is
long overdue.
5 This was one of the reasons why the outgoing governor of Kenya, Sir Philip
Mitchell, was loathe to acknowledge the severity of the Mau Mau rebellion and
declare a state of emergency, admitting that things had got out of hand was
anathema in the colonial service.
6 Philip Haythornthwaite, The Colonial Wars Sourcebook (London, 2000), 18.
7 Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 321.
8 There are many books on the history of regiments such as the KAR and
RWAFF. For a list, see the bibliography in Ashley Jackson, The British Empire
and the Second World War (London, 2005). More unusual because of its ‘through
life’ treatment of a colonial region’s military formations and its attention to
detail beyond the campaigns is Timothy Parsons, The African Rank-and-File:
 The colonial empire and imperial defence 249
Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King’s African Rifles,
1902–1964 (Oxford, 1999).
9 See Barry Morton, ‘Linchwe I and the Kgatla Campaign in the South African
War, 1899–1902’, Journal of African History, 26(1985): 169–91.
10 See Brian Dyde, The Empty Sleeve: The Story of The West India Regiments of the
British Army (St John’s, Antigua, 1997), and Richard Smith, Jamaican Volunteers
in the First World War: Race, Masculinity, and the Development of National Conscious-
ness (Manchester, 2004).
11 Good coverage of some of these imperial formations is to be found in James
Lunt, Imperial Sunset: Frontier Soldiering in the Twentieth Century (London, 1981).
12 David Killingray and David Omissi (eds), Guardians of Empire: The Armed Forces
of the Colonial Powers, c.1700–1964 (Manchester, 1999).
13 The major work on the colonial empire and the First World War remains
Charles Lucas (ed.), The Empire at War, five volumes (London, 1924). The colo-
nial empire was not to be privileged after the Second World War with a similar
official history, the prepared volume remaining in the archives; The National
Archives, Kew. DO 4138. Sir John Shuckburgh, ‘Civil History of the Colonial
Empire at War’ (1949).
14 See Ashley Jackson, War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean
(Basingstoke, 2001).
15 In the Western Desert, the Eighth Army was supported by about 100,000 colo-
nial troops serving in the Royal Pioneer Corps.
16 See, for example, Michael Summerskill, China on the Western Front: Britain’s
Chinese Work Force in the First World War (London, 1982); Robin Kilson, ‘Calling
up the Empire: The British Military Use of Non-White Labour in France,
1916–1920’, PhD Thesis (Harvard University, 1990); Geoffrey Hodges, The
Carrier Corps: Military Labour in the East African Campaign, 1914–1918 (New York,
1966); and Brian Willan, ‘The South African Native Labour Contingent,
1916–1918’, Journal of African History, 19(1978): 34–49.
17 Fred Rowe, ‘Royal Navy Shore Bases U.K. and Overseas Stations’, www.
gwpda.org/naval/rnshore.htm, found on 13 July 2005.
18 See Gregory Haines, Gunboats on the Great River (London, 1976). Information
in this section has been taken from ‘HMS Falcon: Royal Navy Gunboats in
China and the Far East’, www.hmsfalcon.com/, found on 3 June 2005.
19 See Hamish Ion, ‘The Idea of Naval Imperialism: The China Squadron and the
Boxer Uprising’, in Greg Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez,
1900–2000 (London, 2005), 35–61. The Legation Guard was composed of
Royal Marines.
20 See Martin Brice, The Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident, 1937–1941
(London, 1973).
21 To some people, any failure to secure a colony for the British Crown was a
betrayal of imperial interests, allowing Madagascar to go to the French-threat-
ened command of the Indian Ocean, and the Australians and South Africans
never got over the fact that London allowed Germany to secure colonies in their
own backyards, the reason why they were so quick off the mark to claim these
territories when war came in 1914.
22 Ronald Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 1815–1914: A Study of Empire and
Expansion (Basingstoke, 1993), 16.
23 See Douglas Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925–1943 (London,
2004).
24 It has been argued elsewhere that non-European ex-servicemen tended to form
a conservative, pro-British element within colonial society.
25 The best empire-wide account is Kent Fedorowich, Unfit for Heroes: Reconstruc-
tion and Soldier Settlement in the Empire Between the Wars (Manchester, 1995).
250 A. Jackson
26 Timothy Stapleton, ‘Views of the First World War in Southern Rhodesia (Zim-
babwe) 1914–1918’, War and Society, 20 (2002): 23–45.
27 See Ashley Jackson, ‘Bechuanaland, the Caprivi Strip, and the First World
War’, War and Society, 19(2001): 109–42. For the Second World War period, see
Ashley Jackson, Botswana 1939–1945: An African Country at War (Oxford, 1999).
28 The idea of regional power centres is developed in Ashley Jackson, ‘The British
Empire in the Indian Ocean’, in Sanjay Chaturvedi and Dennis Rumley (eds),
Geopolitical and Regional Orientations in the Indian Ocean (Delhi, 2002), 34–55;
and Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War.
29 See Fitzroy André Baptiste, War, Co-operation, and Conflict: The European Posses-
sions in the Caribbean, 1939–1945 (London, 1989). Philip Goodhart, Fifty Ships
that Saved the World: The Foundation of the Anglo-American Alliance (London,
1965), examines the destroyers-for-bases agreement that allowed the Ameri-
cans to develop these British colonial bases.
30 John Darwin likened its role to that of Egypt. Private communication.
31 See Ashley Jackson, ‘Refitting the Fleet in Ceylon: The War Record of Walker
Sons and Company’, Journal of Indian Ocean Studies, 10 (2002): 467–76.
32 See Michael Smith, The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park and the Breaking of
Japan’s Secret Ciphers (London, 2000).
13 Coalition of the usually willing
The dominions and imperial
defence, 1856–1919
Brian P. Farrell

The British Empire was always a military power, but it was not always a mil-
itary coalition. The colonies that became self-governing Dominions,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, formed a distinct
community within the Empire by the early twentieth century.1 Imperial
defence was the most emotional of the many ties linking them to the
Empire. The literature devoted to the subject has produced four clear
themes. First, evolution of the Dominions produced the ‘liberal empire’
which for many British subjects defined their imperial experience.
Second, conditions particular to each Dominion influenced its individual
role. Third, defence relations were always driven by foreign policy. Fourth,
those relations resembled spokes in a wheel running from the mother
country to each Dominion, seldom moving laterally from one Dominion
to another. Scholars long dwelt on constitutional evolution, arguing it
determined the Dominions’ role in imperial defence.2 The focus is
broader now, but one old argument recently resurfaced: did the British
gain enough support from the Dominions to justify the burden they bore
to protect them?3 In that distinct community defence represented the
lowest common denominator, survival. As long as the mother country and
its Dominions remained tied to a global order defined by British power,
they made up their own minds about how to defend what they shared.
This ‘coalition of the usually willing’ made the Dominions’ partners
unique in the history of any Empire.
The concept of imperial defence as a partnership predated the estab-
lishment of Canada as the first Dominion in 1867. It came from the
British themselves, who tried to make all colonies shoulder as much of
the burden of defending themselves as possible. By the 1850s, three
deeply entangled developments established a framework within which
that concept evolved over the next half century. The UK embraced free
trade, responsible government emerged in some settler colonies and
threat perceptions sharply increased, as the British fought a major war in
Europe, a minor war in east Asia and suppressed an uprising in India.
When the British repealed the Corn Laws and embraced free trade, this
252 B.P. Farrell
greatly reinforced their traditional emphasis on sea power. Britain
became a food-importing country whose very survival depended on
secure movement of goods and people on the world’s waterways. Bernard
Porter argued that this transition shaped the development of imperial
defence in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the UK became
the least self-sufficient of the Great Powers, it also became the leader of a
new global order revolving around freer trade. Britain’s central strategic
interest became to defend that global order.4
A few eminent Britons, however, regarded colonies as an unnecessary
expense in the new era and pressed for steps to ease the burden. They
often focused on those colonies that seemed best suited to take on greater
responsibilities: settler colonies peopled by British and other European
emigrants. The eighteenth-century American War of Independence stood
as a warning to pay attention to the development of local identities and
interests in distant colonies. This more sophisticated ‘Second Empire’
tried to bend rather than break, and its primary instrument was evolution
towards responsible government. Nova Scotia started the trend in 1848,
followed in short order by Canada, New Brunswick, Victoria, Cape Colony,
New South Wales, New Zealand and Queensland. This created a new fact
in imperial politics: colonial governments with the power of the purse.
These governments rapidly displayed the tendency to assert their status
and the ambition to enhance it. Some, such as New South Wales,
embraced free trade; others, such as Victoria, clung to protection for their
youthful economies. Canada flirted with the heresy of freer trade outside
the Empire, concluding an 1854 Reciprocity Agreement with the US.
Political sensitivities, the sense of identity and economic interests all com-
bined to make cooperation in defence more complicated, especially from
the British point of view. This cooperation increasingly had to be negoti-
ated with, not dictated to, responsible settler governments.5 British leaders
hoped that loosening the strings of control would strengthen imperial
bonds by fostering greater practical solidarity and offering room to grow
within the safety net of the Empire. But in defence, as well as trade, this
loosening soon appeared to be creating as much conflict of interest as
solidarity. Responsible governments wanted a real voice in how money
they voted for defence was spent, but neither the Admiralty nor the War
Office (WO) was inclined to share control of their operations. All parties
saw defence partnership as essential, but they did not bring to the table
the same experience, capability or interests. Change was sparked by the
third big development, an increase in perceived external threats.
Glen St John Barclay argued that the Crimean War shocked the British
and their settler colonies into recognizing that ‘anything like the basis for
a reasonable system of imperial defence simply did not exist’.6 The British
government had no organized means of collecting, analysing and dissemi-
nating information, allocating resources or pursuing a grand strategy. Not
until the very year the war broke out, 1854, was a separate Colonial Office
 Coalition of the usually willing 253
(CO) created to administer the overseas territories. No one had ever sat
down to think through a system by which the Empire’s vital interests could
be identified and defence plans drafted and related to a grand strategy.
Decisions depended on ad hoc initiative and individual relations within
different Cabinets. The ‘Little England’ sentiment at home, the ambitions
of responsible governments in the colonies, the new strains of free trade
and growing rivalry with other great powers all began to persuade British
policy-makers that this lack of system was a luxury they could no longer
afford. The mutiny in India provoked a reaction in Canada that suggested,
tantalizingly, what might be possible. The WO was not impressed by the
wave of volunteers from colonial militias, military manpower it regarded
as not sufficiently trained for active service overseas. But it could not
simply overlook the growing pool of loyal European manpower in the
colonies and approached the government of Canada for permission to
recruit a force of regulars. The 100th Royal Canadians were raised in short
order, a regular regiment in the British Army officered, trained and
equipped by the British, but manned by Canadians. They were not the
first regiment so raised in a colony but, crucially, they were the first raised
‘for service with British arms anywhere on the globe’.7 This successful
experiment in eliciting a contribution to general defence of the Empire
from a responsible government in a settler colony raised British hopes
that they could tap into the growing pool of colonial resources without
surrendering much in return. The WO asked the CO to join an interde-
partmental committee to investigate a clear question: how might they
define a formula for sharing the cost of garrisons needed to defend the
Empire and its colonies between British and colonial governments?
This simple question was the real beginning of ‘imperial defence’ in
the sense of management, by governments plural, of the shared task of
defending the Empire. As responsible government took shape, the Colo-
nial Secretary, Earl Grey, laid down two maxims in 1852: the British must
assume the minimum necessary role in colonial government, but the colo-
nial government must shoulder the maximum possible share in the
administration and defence of the colony. Four years later Sir William
Dennison, governor of New South Wales, warned that a contradiction was
taking shape. Responsible governments wanted greater status, but did not
want to shoulder greater burdens. Dennison suggested the British ask
colonial governments to share the cost of forces deployed to defend their
colony, in return for a say in their size and disposition. This provoked an
Admiralty reply identifying a problem in imperial defence that was never
resolved: while they welcomed financial assistance, ‘it is perfectly imposs-
ible to localize naval defence’.8
In May 1859, the House of Commons heard the sobering news that the
services considered not one colony adequately defended should major war
break out. Unfortunately the committee could not reach consensus. The
challenge was taken up in March 1861 by a Select Committee of the
254 B.P. Farrell
Commons on Colonial Military Expenditure chaired by Arthur Mills, an
advocate of colonial reform. The Mills Committee was the most important
body to examine colonial defence before the twentieth century, but it only
reflected ideas coming to the boil. It grappled with questions destined to
exercise several generations of successors. Just how far did British respons-
ibility to defend self-governing colonies go? How best could they discharge
this responsibility? How much could the colonies be expected to contribute?
How far, geographically and otherwise, did their duty extend? Most of all,
how could governments plural reconcile the military need for central direc-
tion with the political need for shared accountability and responsibility?9
The committee failed to resolve the vexing issue of where imperial
defence ended and local defence began. ‘Little Englanders’ said self-gov-
erning colonies should be entirely responsible for local defence. Money
drove their argument, strategic concerns taking a back seat. The commit-
tee reported that while one-third of the British Army was stationed in the
colonies (other than India), the UK paid more than 75 per cent of the
operating cost. Their 1862 recommendations tried to bring the two most
pressing concerns into alignment:

That this House (while fully recognizing the claims of all portions of
the British Empire to imperial aid in their protection against perils
arising from the consequences of imperial policy) is of the opinion
that colonies exercising the rights of self-government ought to under-
take the main responsibility of providing for their own internal order
and security and ought to assist in their own external defence.

The first issue seemed clear. Colonies could become targets in a European
war, so surely the mother country should take the lead in providing
general protection. But in fact nothing was ever clear-cut in imperial
defence. New Zealand was mired in a conflict between Maoris and Euro-
pean settlers, while Canada and New Brunswick faced cross-border attacks
by Fenians, an Irish Republican group. These concrete examples pro-
voked what became a familiar argument: responsible governments of
settler colonies insisted that even their internal troubles were threats to
British interests, or driven by British policies. A prevailing British idea held
that self-defence should be the corollary of self-government, but the
colonies refused to agree there was any defence issue from which the
British could justifiably distance themselves.10
Unfortunately, answering one question only seemed to raise another.
The idea that the British government should pay only for imperial gar-
risons deployed to protect imperial rather than merely local interests was
a perfect example. All it did was provoke a rash of colonial claims that all
their garrisons were imperial garrisons. The confusion was illustrated by
the 1865 Colonial Naval Defence Act, which authorized self-governing
colonies to acquire naval vessels for local protection and has, therefore,
 Coalition of the usually willing 255
often been seen as the legislative beginning of real partnership in imper-
ial defence. But the act’s sponsors intended to save Britain a good deal of
money by delegating responsibility, while the Admiralty opposed the
whole idea on strategic grounds. In some Australian colonies, the act did
promote ideas of local defence, but in the Canadian colonies proximity
to the UK, plus treaty arrangements that neutralized the Great Lakes,
produced a milder reaction.11 Far more controversial were British
decisions to withdraw army garrisons. In 1864, ten regiments were
engaged in New Zealand, whose government then requested a loan guar-
antee of £3 million. The British reaction was to withdraw nine regiments
by 1867, and the last in 1870, and refuse to guarantee more than £1
million on the market.12 This was part of a broader retrenchment aligned
to a change in foreign policy, from the truculence of Lord Palmerston to
the laissez-faire approach of William Ewart Gladstone, who preached
public economy above all else. Gladstone’s secretary of state for war,
Edward Cardwell, did not alter the army’s primary mission: to defend the
overseas Empire as opposed to preparing for great power war in Europe.
But Cardwell and Gladstone did take advantage of new techniques and
ideas to streamline the army overseas. Faster more reliable means of
moving troops and of communicating meant more of the army could be
kept home as a central reserve. The number of overseas garrisons could
be reduced, except in India. But Indian revenues paid for the defence of
India. Failure to work out a similar agreement with the self-governing
colonies after the Mills report left them vulnerable. By 1871, Cardwell’s
‘withdrawal of the legions’ was visibly reducing this most conspicuous of
the ties that bound – nowhere more so than in Canada.13
C.P. Stacey, who established military history as a serious academic
discipline in Canada, agreed that the reduction of British garrisons in the
1860s was a turning point in the history of imperial defence. But he
argued a paradox: recalling the legions in fact made imperialism politic-
ally more palatable in Britain.14 The British North American experience
suggests he was right. In 1861, responding to the American Civil War,
British reinforcements rushed to the colonies. But by 1871, the only
regular troops remaining were the garrisons of the naval bases in
Esquimalt and Halifax – and they were there to protect the bases, not the
Canadians. For Canadians they now were, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
Ontario and Quebec having merged in Confederation in 1867.
In the crisis of 1861 Canada called out the militia. But in 1862 the legis-
lature, wanting to punish an unpopular government, defeated the Militia
Bill. British official opinion was infuriated by what it saw as the feckless
refusal of a responsible government to assume a proper share in its own
defence. By this time, the British government was spending £900,000 per
year on Canadian defence, but the Canadian answer to British appeals was
that if the cost of protection was going to be so high, ‘the best defence is
no defence at all’. Col. W.F.D. Jervois began his rise to prominence in
256 B.P. Farrell
imperial defence by arguing in an 1864 report that no British government
could afford to spend enough money to oppose a serious American inva-
sion. Canadian reluctance to share the burden was not decisive, for the
colonies could not have made up the difference.15 But it did matter,
because it affected the political atmosphere in which Jervois’ report was
considered.
The strategy the British developed was political and economic support
for the Confederation and pursuit of a modus vivendi with the US. Just as
important as the British North America Act establishing the first Dominion
on 1 July 1867 was Washington’s willingness to accept a new relationship
with the UK. It culminated in the 1871 Treaty of Washington providing for
‘the Amicable Settlement of all Causes of Difference Between the Two
Countries’. The Americans accepted the new British Dominion and the
British accepted American predominance in North America. This first
Dominion would be defended by diplomacy.16
Canadian politicians saw this for the practical bargain it was, but the
feeble Militia Act of 1868 indicated that the new Dominion would seek
shelter behind that diplomatic shield. R.A. Preston argued in his standard
history of Canada and imperial defence that constitutional evolution mat-
tered more than the withdrawal of British troops in fostering Canadian
control of Canadian defence. He agreed, however, that the Canadian reac-
tion was a far from noble bid to assume as much self-government as pos-
sible without sacrificing any measure of British protection or access to
British markets and loans.17 This was a poor start for a more systematic
imperial defence with a new kind of junior partner. Some themes des-
tined to become perennial were already clear: Dominions would not
necessarily be more willing to share costs than self-governing colonies;
British and Dominion governments would face debates within their own
ranks about the best way to promote the partnership; and some strategic
problems seemed greater than the military power the Empire could
muster to face them.
Benjamin Disraeli criticized defence arrangements in his famous Crystal
Palace speech of 1872. Mounting an all-out attack on the ‘Little Englander’
view of colonies as a burden, he argued that the Mills recommendations
led nowhere. Self-government, he said, should rest on a contract; it ought
to have been granted within a ‘military code, which should have precisely
defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should be
defended, and by which, if necessary, this country should call for aid from
the colonies themselves’. Disraeli resumed office in 1874 and his policy,
plus the reduction of tension in North America, focused attention on the
RN as the principal vehicle of imperial defence.18 But Disraeli did not
address a burning question: how could the Empire’s governments define
an agreed defence policy in the first place?
That issue was raised in 1867 by John Colomb, a former Royal Marines
officer, in his pamphlet The Protection of our Commerce and Distribution of our
 Coalition of the usually willing 257
Naval Forces. Far from being just another navalist tract, Colomb’s work was
a seminal argument for the need for a proper system of imperial defence,
based on a balanced grand strategy. Colomb took the discussion far
beyond the familiar premise the army’s job was to protect ports and naval
bases so the RN could save the Empire by winning another Trafalgar.
Colomb accepted the importance of sea power, but insisted the armed
forces must collaborate in an Empire-wide defence strategy. The navy
would protect the sea lanes and prevent external invasion of the home
islands and overseas colonies; the army would protect naval bases, defend
India and reinforce areas from which strikes could be launched against
any serious foe. Colomb argued this required Empire governments to
pool resources in a comprehensive system. He elaborated in 1873 by
arguing it must be possible to send forces raised to defend one region of
the Empire to help defend any other that came under attack. While his
stress on the importance of trade was commonplace, his calls for an integ-
rated Empire-wide system and forces were fresh and provocative.19
Coming after Confederation in Canada and Disraeli’s call for a military
code, his arguments helped challenge the laissez-faire assumption that
free trade, naval supremacy and delegation of responsibility would be
enough to protect the Empire in a changing world. This might seem poor
return for two decades of arguing about how to defend the Empire, but at
least the central problems were now fully aired.
The Disraeli government emphasized the Empire in foreign policy. It
did so amidst changes in the international scene that made British leaders
wonder whether reducing defence spending and concentrating on mili-
tary forces at home were wise after all. The expansion of British trade, the
completion in 1869 of the Suez Canal, the establishment of Crown author-
ity in India, a large increase in the merchant marine and the shift to coal
all increased the navy’s burden. It required an extensive network of bases
and coaling stations as well as a large, balanced fleet to protect global lines
of communication while concentrating against major threats. Discrepan-
cies between economic interests within the Empire generated more com-
plications. Some colonies stayed behind tariff walls to build up infant
industries while demanding preferential access to the British market. But
the direct trigger for change came from international relations. A new
unified Germany emerged, upsetting the balance of power in Europe by
its mere existence. France turned again towards an imperial policy.
Finally, a more assertive Russia sought revenge for defeat in 1856 and
more expansion, which directly challenged the Empire in central Asia and
the eastern Mediterranean. Porter’s thesis fits these developments well:
Britain’s vital interest was to defend a global system it defined. But this
time, fear of war with Russia provoked changes that raised the imperial-
defence debate to another level.
Jervois spelt out the connection between naval defence and the self-gov-
erning colonies in an 1876 memorandum. Now Governor of the Straits
258 B.P. Farrell
Settlements, Jervois argued that four imperial fortresses – Bermuda,
Gibraltar, Halifax and Malta – were no longer enough. His self-interested
plea earned him a commission to visit the Australian colonies to review
their defence problems. His work became more important when fear of
war with Russia became serious in 1878. The British government shocked
colonial governments by warning they could not count on the RN to be
everywhere at once. But it also appointed in 1879 a Royal Commission ‘to
inquire into the defence of British possessions and commerce abroad’.
The Carnarvon Commission did indeed produce ‘the first comprehensive
study of imperial defence’, and its report made three key points. First, it
drew the implied link between trade and defence, emphasizing how much
the Empire depended on seaborne trade. Second, echoing Colomb, it
insisted that colonial defence issues must not be seen just as local prob-
lems. Third, imperial defence must remain based on sea power. Reactions
to its report reflected the tension between real interdependence and
particular local situations.20
Sir John Seeley argued in The Expansion of England, published in 1881,
that the future depended on the liberal empire of settler colonies. By cre-
ating a great ‘imperial federation’ of British stock, the Empire could
match European rivals and secure its destiny. Seeley and other propo-
nents of the imperial federation sketched a new design to bring the
British states together in the perfect paradox: a tightly knit power resting
on free association. This would at one and the same time promote British
power and assert a high moral purpose of empire. Most Britons support-
ing such ideas looked first towards economics, which was hardly
surprising. Free trade was the fabled basis of British prosperity and the
most public source of contention with the self-governing colonies. And by
this time, 70 per cent of British investment in the Empire was going into
these colonies. Australia and New Zealand were receiving more invest-
ment per capita than any other area, most of it public money. Here was a
natural association of kith and kin as well as trade and commerce. Here,
surely, were Britain’s obvious partners in defence and development. Such
ideas led in 1884 to the founding of the Imperial Federation League, to
promote federation through trade. The League attracted supporters and
critics at home and in the colonies. The appeal of the federal idea was the
assumption it was necessary for peoples sharing the same racial stock, lan-
guage and root heritage to find ways to associate more closely in a danger-
ous world. Self-governing colonies could progress towards full nationhood
within a flexible political structure. Federalism writ large would do for the
Empire what it was meant to do for Canada: make it possible to combine
cooperation and diversity. Lord Rosebery pointed the way at a speech in
Adelaide in January 1884: ‘There is no need for any nation, however great,
leaving the Empire, because the Empire is a commonwealth of nations’.21
The twentieth century would adopt Rosebery’s phrase as the very title of
the liberal empire focused on the Dominions – but in 1884 it only pointed
 Coalition of the usually willing 259
towards a distant aspiration. Federation was easier described than done,
something already very clear when it came to defence. That year the British
government took a serious step by establishing the Colonial Defence
Committee (CDC) as a standing body. This was the first permanent co-
ordinating body tasked to advise both home and colonial governments
about colonial defence. But its very name indicated how much remained to
be done to build an effective system of imperial defence. In Whitehall, the
key question remained: how could self-governing colonies best contribute
to the general, meaning naval and British-controlled, defence of the
Empire? In 1885, the CDC sent a circular letter to Canada and the self-gov-
erning colonies requesting comprehensive information on forces, plans
and problems. This was the first such request London ever made.22
This outburst of expectations provoked strong reactions overseas. In
Canada, the 1878 war scare prompted people to talk about being pulled
into British conflicts elsewhere in the world. The Dominion had already
learnt the hard way Confederation was only the first step in a long road it
must travel before it was anywhere near wealthy and strong enough to pay
its own way in the world economy – and defend itself. Yet even many of
those who staunchly celebrated the imperial connection saw it as an
expression of Canadian national aspirations. Canada already defined itself
by the struggle to resist the profound economic, social and cultural forces
that pulled it towards the US. Canadian imperialists saw the British connec-
tion as the way not only to repel annexation, but also promote a strong
overseas Dominion that could one day become a leader in its own right
within the Empire. Federation would be the culmination, not negation, of
Dominon status.23 Such apparent contradictions were epitomized by
Canada’s iconic Father of Confederation Sir John A. Macdonald when he
said ‘a British subject I was born, a British subject I will die’. But in 1879,
Macdonald’s government adopted the National Policy, tariff walls designed
to protect the nascent national economy and develop a cohesive polity
‘from sea to sea’. The walls were aimed at the Americans, but also stood in
front of the British. As for defence, British and Canadian officials spent
more time trying to control the underfunded militia than building it up.
The Canadians saw it as a back door through which the British could inter-
fere. In the 1880s, Canadian leaders started to press for a greater say in
defence, without offering to increase their contribution.24 This worried the
British. As the first Dominion, Canada would set an example others would
one day follow. Any effort to erect an organized system of imperial defence
must include Canada.
The British Parliament passed the Army Act of 1881 with such prob-
lems in mind. Section 177 allowed Dominion legislation to apply to
Dominion units serving overseas. It was a clear signal the British were
looking now for ways to bring overseas governments into a defence
alliance, not just recruit manpower to bolster British forces. But such
intentions fell squarely into the contentious and fluid zone where British
260 B.P. Farrell
authority ended and Dominion authority began. While the Canadian
government did not yet seriously challenge British authority to direct
foreign policy, defence was already another matter. When the 1878 war
scare prompted the British garrison commander in Halifax to propose an
imperial reserve force stationed in Canada, Macdonald welcomed the
idea. But in 1880, the scheme fell apart over the question of control. The
idea was that Canada would recruit and pay for the force, the UK would
equip it. But the British government doubted that Canada would allow a
force it paid for, a force likely to be the only effective military force in the
Dominion, to be called overseas by the British in wartime. The idea was
quietly abandoned, and Canada established its own tiny Permanent Force
in 1883 instead.25 Canadian and British defence priorities were not
necessarily going to be identical; a Dominion government might well feel
that a distant conflict was not something it really wanted to deal with. How
then could there be any system of imperial defence?
Lord Dufferin suggested an answer as early as 1874 when, as governor-
general, he advised London:

Nothing has more stimulated the passionate affection with which

Canada now clings to England [sic] than the consciousness that the
maintenance of this connection depends on her own free will. Were
however the curb to be pressed too tightly, she might soon become
impatient, the cry for Independence would be raised too soon and
Annexation [by the USA] would be the direct and immediate con-
sequence.26

Macdonald emphatically agreed. He rejected a formal system of imperial

defence by arguing that the strategic situation of each colony differed too
greatly for any system based on commitments fixed in advance to address
their individual concerns. Besides, such commitments were bound to
provoke arguments in every colony over whether responsible governments
were being rolled back by centralized control in London. The problem was
supremely political. In Canada, any peacetime promises to support British
forces elsewhere, by men or money, would be attacked by those wary of the
British connection as colonial cringe, a surrender of hard-won autonomy.
Many French and Irish Canadians, among others, were sure to press such
arguments. That would provoke ‘loyal’ arguments in response. Canadian
national unity would be threatened by any debate about rallying to the impe-
rial cause in a distant conflict, which many Canadians might not see as any
direct concern of theirs. Such debate should arise only if there was a major
war. Far better, Macdonald argued, to rely on a real crisis to remind Canadi-
ans that if anything serious happened to the UK they could not survive
unscathed. On this lowest common denominator everyone would agree.27
In 1884, the British stumbled into a war in Sudan. The Macdonald
government, arguing that there was no major threat to British power,
 Coalition of the usually willing 261
refused to provide any official Canadian assistance. However, the govern-
ment allowed volunteers to join British forces. This balancing act sent a
signal that shaped Canadian defence priorities for the next sixty years:
anything Canada did overseas could provoke national discord, so no Cana-
dian government would commit forces to distant conflicts unless British
power itself – and thus the global order it defended – was at stake.28
British pressure for closer cooperation on naval defence met similar resis-
tance. When the Admiralty argued it was strategically necessary to central-
ize control of naval forces, Canadians responded that they faced no
maritime threat, short of general war, to justify handing over men and
money without any say in their employment. By the time the CDC circular
arrived, it was clear all parties were a long way from agreeing on how any
imperial military coalition could function.29
Things were different in Australia and New Zealand, less troubled by
domestic ant-British constituencies and more concerned about French
and German interest in south Pacific islands. A series of intercolonial con-
ferences in the 1880s sent ambivalent signals. The 1881 conference rec-
ommended stronger coastal defences, but also called on the Admiralty to
reinforce its Australian Squadron ‘at the exclusive charge of the Imperial
Government’. Jervois summarized local feelings in a report that stated the
colonies were prepared to guard their ports, but everything else was up to
the RN. Federation proposals bogged down in arguments over clashing
interests; New Zealand stood entirely aloof, preferring a looser imperial
federation to one with Australia. On the other hand, New Zealand did
offer to contribute to the cost of cruiser protection for its own waters. This
piqued Admiralty interest. Successive commanders-in-chief of the Aus-
tralian Station reinforced Jervois’ advice that the only effective way to
strengthen regional defences was for the colonies to pool their resources
in the federation and contribute more of that pool to defence arrange-
ments connected to broader British policy. This was the emerging ‘Blue
Water’ school of thought: imperial defence was naval defence; naval
defence required central control; the best role for colonies was to con-
tribute men, material and money to the RN. In 1884, the Admiralty sent
Admiral George Tryon to take over the Australia Station and find a way to
connect local and imperial defence.30
Disputes with other European powers over colonization in Africa and
the Pacific kept the defence question in the forefront. War in Sudan
prompted both debate and offers of colonial contingents. The New South
Wales contingent did not see much service, but provoked controversy
when the colonial government agreed to make it available if tension with
Russia led to trouble on the Northwest Frontier in India. Naval officers
bickered about precedence, protocol and anything else they could find.
The retired British officer hired to command Victoria’s naval force had to
be ordered to change his title from ‘Officer Commanding Her Majesty’s
Naval Forces in Victoria’ to ‘of Victoria’. Under the circumstances, Tryon
262 B.P. Farrell
proposed what he saw as the only realistic way to draw out more effective
commitments from the Australian colonies. Forces raised and financed by
the colonies would augment British forces protecting them.31
Tryon’s proposal reached a British government coping with strong
domestic reaction to recent events. Colonial rivalries escalated to a full-
scale furore in 1884 when Wickham Steed, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette,
published a series of alarming stories about British naval shortcomings
and French naval ambitions. Public outcry led to an official inquiry, doub-
ling of the naval construction budget and more pressure for a serious
overhaul of imperial defence. This plus the need to discuss the CDC circu-
lar letter, and pressure from the Imperial Federation League, prompted
the government to use Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 to invite
colonial governments to a conference to make ‘an attempt . . . to attain to
a better understanding as to the system of defence which may be estab-
lished throughout the Empire’. Perhaps to contain expectations – or sus-
picions – the invitation was casual: send ‘any leading public man who may
be at liberty to come to England’. Macdonald did not attend and the
Canadians discussed little more than control of their own militia.32 But
Alfred Deakin of Victoria did attend and ripped into the British for not
taking enough notice of Australian concerns about the Pacific. Lord Salis-
bury replied that the British and their self-governing colonies should use
their political compatibility to build closer links. To the Admiralty’s disap-
pointment, the conference rejected a Cape Colony suggestion that naval
defence could be paid for by a 2 per cent value-added tax. But it pursued
the idea of connecting colonial defence spending directly to British sea
power. The result was a landmark agreement. The Australian colonies
would contribute £126,000 per year for an auxiliary squadron of five war-
ships, while New Zealand paid £20,000 per year towards the cost of two
vessels under command of the Australian Station – but those ships could
not be moved away from the station without the consent of the colonial
governments. The agreement became a typical story in the history of
imperial defence. Most parties accepted it, but nobody saw it as final. The
Admiralty took it as the best deal available; hoping the restriction on its
control of naval forces would never be exercised in any real crisis. Imper-
ial federationists in the UK and the colonies saw it as a step towards their
goal and the British government publicly defended it on those grounds.
Colonial critics claimed this would drag them into British wars that did
not concern them. But pragmatic nationalists such as Deakin saw it as an
acceptable stopgap until the Australian federation was realized. When the
smoke and fury died down, it was clear that a conference of imperial
politicians had discussed collective defence in some detail and agreed to
try to reconcile the tension between control and contribution.33
One analysis called the agreement ‘a remarkably good bargain’ for the
southern colonies, something the Admiralty certainly felt at the time.
Naval priorities were shifting towards the Blue Water strategic vision,
 Coalition of the usually willing 263
emphasizing the battle fleet and decisive battle, rather than the balanced
fleet and coastal concerns.34 Real change came in 1889 when the British
Parliament passed the Naval Defence Act. This laid down a shipbuilding
programme aimed at ensuring the RN remained strong enough to defeat
its two largest rivals combined: the famous Two Power Standard. More
than one historian has seen this as the real beginning of systematic impe-
rial defence. The Admiralty argued strongly that supremacy at sea must
be the very foundation of imperial defence. The Two Power Standard was
a simple concept to grasp and it seized the public imagination, in both
the UK and the colonies. It provided a strategic benchmark against which
to measure concerns about constitutional progress, centralization and
differences in political, economic and strategic priorities. It also fed new
thinking about the Empire, at home and abroad. The orthodoxy of free
trade, plus organic political evolution for a liberal empire, was chal-
lenged by calls for more deliberate efforts to increase British power. Such
‘constructionist’ thinking often pressed defence issues as a priority. In a
world more hostile to British interests, the Empire now seemed central,
not peripheral. The Imperial Federation League spawned a defence wing
which, supported by the Navy League, waged a public campaign for inte-
grating the Empire through defence policy and forces, rather than trade
and finance.35
This idea that the Empire must be taken in hand rather than left to
build itself never led to a federation, but did drive the debate about impe-
rial defence for the next generation. It stood in direct contrast to Macdon-
ald’s call to rely on underlying fundamental bonds to emerge in times of
real crisis. This was ultimately a debate about how best to preserve Britain
as a great power. Federationists believed only formal reunion on a higher
political plane would fend off centrifugal forces of change. Macdonald
spoke in 1890 for those who replied that the Empire must absorb, not
resist, such forces:

I am very desirable that the connection between the Mother Country

and the Colonies shall be drawn closer, and that the larger groups of
Colonies should assume by degrees a position less of dependence and
more of alliance. I think this can only be done however by treaty or
Convention and I am a total disbeliever in the practicability of Colo-
nial representation in the Imperial Parliament. There is no necessity
for such representation. The great subjects of common defence and
preferential trade can be arrived at by treaty arrangements.36

Federationists could insist central direction was a strategic necessity; liberals

could say responsible government would be a mockery if colonial forces
were not controlled by colonial governments. The impasse was well
described by D.C. Gordon, who said imperial defence was still ‘defence con-
trolled by the imperial government, not defence based on the cooperation
264 B.P. Farrell
of the governments of the Empire’. Yet another commission of inquiry, the
Hartington Commission, stated in 1890 that better cooperation between the
Admiralty and the WO was a prerequisite for tackling the more complicated
challenge of ‘defence based on the cooperation of governments of the
Empire’.37
The connection was discussed in an influential 1892 book, Imperial
Defence, by Charles Dilke and Spencer Wilkinson. They made two intrigu-
ing points: British defence policy must rest on organizing resources of
the whole Empire, and a General Staff was needed. While they saw the
Indian Army as the main contribution the Empire could make to British
power, Dilke tied the General Staff directly to the self-governing
colonies. The Empire badly needed a standing body to examine and
advise on its complex defence problems and bring the various military
forces together in an integrated strategy. But when in 1894 the Canadian
government organized its own colonial conference to discuss trade and
communications with the Pacific colonies, the agenda did not even
mention defence. Worse, the clash between colonial protectionism and
British free trade was now provoking colonial criticism of British-made
trade treaties with other powers.38 This clash of agendas, which sub-
sumed the whole imperial defence question, became the great public
issue of the day when taken up by the most ambitious Empire construc-
tionist of all: Joseph Chamberlain.
In 1895, Chamberlain, the coming man in British politics, surprised
everyone by accepting the supposedly lesser post of colonial secretary in a
new government led by Lord Salisbury. From this base Chamberlain
launched the most ambitious challenge ever mounted to the liberal
empire and the principles on which it rested. Defence and Dominions
were central to his agenda: to strengthen the British Empire by reinforc-
ing the natural connections that bound it together in mutual self-interest.
The Queen’s diamond jubilee in 1897 gave Chamberlain a chance to
seize the initiative. This time the British invited government leaders of
the self-governing colonies to a formal colonial conference. There,
Chamberlain encountered the Canadian heir to Macdonald, Wilfrid
Laurier.
The conference took place amidst an orgy of imperial pageantry. The
fleet review and military parades displayed a global empire replete with
power and confidence. But Chamberlain and his colleagues looked
beyond the public face at some hard facts. The British were now beset by
colonial rivalries with Germany as well as France and Russia. Industrial
and economic competition from the Americans and the Germans was
intense. Diplomatic isolation was starting to look more dangerous than
splendid. Chamberlain talked about ‘natural Anglo-Saxon kinship’ with
the Americans and the Germans. But for every step forward, there was a
problem. For example, British attempts to make the Canadian militia a
more effective force provoked rows over political control. Chamberlain
 Coalition of the usually willing 265
understood a central fact that more emotional imperialists misread. The
forces of the self-governing colonies were part of an imperial military
system only if colonial governments chose to provide them.39
Chamberlain prepared his ground by sending colonial governors in
1896 a CDC memorandum on principles of imperial defence. Its crucial
argument was that strategic necessity must override ‘political’ concerns, a
direct assault on the 1887 naval compromise with the southern colonies:

The maintenance of sea supremacy has been assumed as the basis of

the system of Imperial defence against attack from over the sea. This is
the determining factor in shaping the whole defensive policy of the
Empire, and is fully recognized by the Admiralty, who have accepted
the responsibility of protecting all British territory abroad against
organized invasion from the sea. To fulfil this great charge, they claim
the absolute power of disposing of their forces in the manner they con-
sider most certain to secure success, and object to limit the action of
any part of them to the immediate neighbourhood of places which they
consider may be more effectively protected by operations at a distance

Chamberlain placed before the conference a collection of ideas explored

by the CDC: the 1887 restrictions on the Australian Squadron should be
ended; governments should concentrate on how the colonies could help
maintain the RN; colonies should allow their forces to serve overseas;
British and colonial naval and military forces should be similar in regula-
tions, equipment, training, organization and doctrine; exchanges of mili-
tary units should be arranged to bolster functional integration. These
proposals were based on the idea of imperial defence as an indivisible stra-
tegic problem. They provoked three broad colonial responses. Most Aus-
tralian delegates denounced the call to terminate the 1887 agreement.
They insisted its purpose was to bolster their local defence, not contribute
to general imperial defence. The Cape Colony took the opposite tack,
offering to pay for a cruiser the RN could use as it saw fit. Laurier rejected
all calls to support the RN and showed little interest beyond general
support for measures of functional integration. Chamberlain failed to per-
suade the conference to agree that iron laws of sea power required the
Empire to find political ways to make strategic centralization work. Most
colonial leaders were thinking the reverse: the Empire must find ways to
defend itself that reconciled its desire to cooperate with its diversity of
interests and agendas.40
Chamberlain’s failure to persuade the colonies to adopt centraliza-
tion as an overriding priority indicated the future course of imperial
defence. Henceforth, it evolved on two lines. Functional integration did
over time produce armies, navies, and ultimately air forces, that wore
similar uniforms, followed similar regulations, used generally standard
weapons and equipment, were organized and trained along similar lines,
266 B.P. Farrell
and intermingled from individuals up to major formations. But the all-
important decisions on when, where, how and especially why to employ
such forces settled on Macdonald’s lowest common denominator. The
philosophy of the liberal empire held that the strongest ties were natural
ones that sustained themselves, by the free will of all concerned. To
ardent imperialists and military planners, however, those ties were dan-
gerously loose, and the whole question of just how to work together
remained in dispute. Only a serious crisis could force all parties to sort
out in practice just what was possible in imperial defence. Chamberlain’s
drive for imperial power triggered one.
The discovery of great mineral wealth in southern Africa provoked a
struggle for ascendancy between the British and an established European
population: the Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers. The push to estab-
lish British power ‘from the Cape to Cairo’ ran through Boer territory and
in autumn 1899 the Boers decided to fight. Although shocked and humili-
ated by early defeats, the British did not require colonial forces to prevail.
Sea power isolated the Boers from outside help. But their early victories
and stubborn defensive campaign forced the British to reconsider grand
strategy. They could not rely on sea power alone in any future European
war, which forced them to take a long hard look at the army as a military
instrument. Boer resistance sparked other great powers to criticize the
British and even discuss intervention. British diplomacy was harder
pressed to pre-empt any such challenge than the government found com-
fortable. They pursued two ways to ease the pressure. Both directly
affected the self-governing colonies. One was to reduce the number and
temperature of disputes with other powers, which reinforced an ongoing
policy of removing any possible cause of confrontation with the US. It also
reinforced efforts to reduce threats to British interests in Asia, which cul-
minated in 1902 in a formal defensive alliance with Japan. The other
method was to orchestrate a great rally of the Empire and its military
might, to demonstrate the power of ‘greater Britain’. Colonial forces were
not needed to defeat the Boers, but their presence in a distant war could
drive home a point the British now found it necessary to make: any great
power that challenged the UK must fear it would face the combined mili-
tary and economic might of the British Empire.41
This was far removed from seeing colonies as an unnecessary burden.
Now the most urgent argument was about what self-governing colonies
should do to help the British defend their overseas interests.42 The root
issue, however, remained just what Macdonald foresaw twenty years
before: did this war threaten British power itself – not the physical survival
of the UK, but rather its power to defend a global order oriented around
its economic might and interests? Calculated realism had to share the
debate with identity politics and sheer emotion. In the end, the war con-
firmed what should long have been obvious: as long as the Empire
propped up a British world order, the self-governing colonies would be
 Coalition of the usually willing 267
concerned about its defence. But they would all respond according to
their own interests as they saw them.
When protracted war prompted the British to use extreme methods,
such as the notorious ‘concentration camps’, public opinion in the UK
divided bitterly. The colonies were all affected by this and by the increas-
ingly dangerous tone of world politics. New Zealand was not, contrary to
conventional opinion, unanimously ‘loyal’ in its first overseas war. But criti-
cism was diverse and ineffective. The first contingent sailed in October
1899, and some 6,000 New Zealanders served in all, fighting for ‘One Flag,
One Queen, One Tongue and One Country – Britain’. Prime Minister
Richard Seddon orchestrated a broad consensus: New Zealand’s interest
was to help preserve a strong Britain committed to imperial engagement.
The Kiwis opted to stand aside from the resolution of the long federation
debate in Australia, choosing to make their own way within the Empire in
direct partnership with the British.43 Australian criticisms of the war were
not much stronger. Some 16,000 Australians eventually served and many
more could have, such was the support for ‘the British cause’. But they
returned to a new country. Federation negotiations produced a Common-
wealth of Australia, uniting the continent in a new Dominion on the first
day of the twentieth century. This second Dominion demonstrated during
the war that while the British could rely on it for military support, it was
even more willing now to criticize British direction of imperial defence. Mil-
itary engagement produced in Australia and other colonies a growing sense
of identity and pride. This was not always positive. Ideal images of country-
bred ‘born soldiers’, tall, fit, at home in the saddle and in the field were
contrasted with stereotypes of English regulars stunted by unhealthy living
in urban slums. Many British officers responded by denigrating the discip-
line of colonial soldiers and competence of their officers – and they were
not always wrong, nor always condescending. The colonial contribution
was on the whole beneficial to all parties, but produced its own frictions
and legends. Chamberlain supported the Australian federation. But he did
so because he concluded it could be a step towards larger integration, not
just because it would be counterproductive to oppose it.44
Chamberlain decided to use the imperial solidarity fostered by the war to
try again to strengthen the bonds. A ‘soft’ peace settlement in 1902 laid the
ground for smoother absorption of southern Africa into the Empire and trig-
gered another colonial conference. There, Chamberlain ran into govern-
ments both buoyed and bruised by the experience of going to war to defend
the Empire – which made them even more ready to assert their own views on
how that should be done. Canada’s war experience prompted Laurier to
take the lead this time. Strategic arguments would never persuade the
colonies to place their forces permanently at British disposal. The Empire
must defend itself by agreement as and when necessary, not by integration
and central control. Some 8,300 Canadians served in southern Africa, but
their story spoke volumes about the limits to Canada’s commitment. As war
268 B.P. Farrell
approached Chamberlain concluded Laurier would try to evade any formal
Canadian contribution, while Laurier concluded Chamberlain would try to
oblige him to make one. They were both right. Private exchanges indicated
the British would refuse to accept Canadian volunteers for British forces and
the Canadian government would try to head off any public appeal for Cana-
dian forces. Meanwhile Major-General Edward Hutton, the British general
officer commanding the Canadian militia, thought there should and would
be a Canadian contribution and prepared to organize a contingent. When
war broke out, Canadian public opinion erupted in emotional debate. The
demand for Canada to line up with the mother country proved stronger, so
Laurier and his colleagues decided they must offer a contingent. But they
wrongly assumed the whole mess was caused by Hutton conspiring to force
Canada to support a British war, instead of advising the Canadian government
as their military counsel. This was not fair. The relationship between the GOC
(General Officer Commanding) and the two governments had never really
been sorted out, and the support for intervention was very real. Macdonald
was vindicated: the ties did exist, whether Hutton made speeches or not.45
Laurier’s real complaint was that the whole situation put him in a very
difficult position, stuck between those who emphasized the British con-
nection and those who were wary of it. Laurier limited Canadian partici-
pation as closely as he could, which of course pleased no one. The war
strengthened the voices of those who wanted Canada to stay closer to its
own direct concerns, and their case was helped by the ongoing British
effort to resolve all disputes with the Americans. In practice, this often
meant giving way on Canadian issues in order to please the Americans.
The price the British had to pay was the political rise of those such as
Henri Bourassa in Montreal, who argued that Canada need not abandon
the Empire but must always put its own concerns first. To Laurier foreign
policy was a minefield – and with the Americans reconciled, foreign
policy meant imperial defence.46
At the 1902 colonial conference, Laurier presented this altered expres-
sion of Canadian nationalism. Chamberlain’s appeal for integration was
sober and serious. His eloquence did not conceal the need to re-examine
how the Empire dealt with a fast-changing world:

We do require your assistance in the administration of the vast Empire

which is yours as well as ours. The weary Titan staggers under the too
vast orb of its fate. We have borne the burden for many years. We
think it is time that our children should assist us to support it.

But the British wanted to discuss not how the partners could administer
their common enterprise together, but rather how the colonies could best
support its defence. If imperial defence could indeed be defined as a
common enterprise based on principles and priorities agreed by all, then
the bottom line vindicated the British. No more than 30,000, plus perhaps
 Coalition of the usually willing 269
50,000 locally recruited, of the 450,000 troops committed to war in south-
ern Africa came from the colonies. British taxpayers paid more than
twenty-nine shillings per capita per year on defence; Canadians paid two
shillings, Australians three. But it was unacceptable for the British to want
contributions and not want to share direction. Laurier rejected all argu-
ments about the need for more integrated strategy and the inequity of
contribution, and his agenda was more subtle than the mere desire to
assert status. He said Canada would contribute to imperial defence by
doing more to defend itself, because he wanted to keep all parties in play
in the constant debate. His stance failed to impress London for the same
reason it worked at home: the British knew Canada would use it to justify
avoiding future overseas engagement. Each party had a valid argument.
The British knew Laurier’s promise was strategically hollow because they
were withdrawing from North America anyway. Laurier was right to argue
that a Canada paralysed by domestic discord would be no help to the
British in any overseas conflict. But neither would give an inch. Laurier
did not stand alone. Australian delegates suggested their priority should
be ‘to build a stronger Britain in the south’. That expressed growing
national aspirations, as well as resentment of the Admiralty rejection of
the 1887 pledge for regional defence. The integration the colonies really
wanted to discuss was integration by trade. But this would compel the
British to abandon free trade, which would disrupt their entire political
and economic system while the colonies stood fast. The British wanted
help, but not at such a high price. The conference ended as it began:
everything rested still on Macdonald’s lowest common denominator.47
Failure in 1902 pushed Chamberlain down the road to political disas-
ter. The very next year he launched his great campaign for tariff reform,
still hoping to build an integrated Empire, but the UK would not abandon
free trade. The campaign ended in 1906 in a landslide election victory for
the Liberal party, which preserved the foundations of the liberal empire
for another generation. However much some in the overseas realms might
bemoan free trade, the British-centred economic system remained funda-
mental to their interests and their identity. But they continued to engage
it from their own agendas. New Zealand joined the Dominions in 1907,
looking to rival rather than join Australia in building ‘a stronger Britain in
the south’. Statesmanship produced negotiations that in 1910 brought
the older British colonies together with the recently conquered Boer
states in a new Union of South Africa, to form the fourth Dominion. This
constitutional development reshaped the liberal empire. Britain’s partners
in discussion were now all consolidated states, built to entrench a British-
centred entity in their own region.48
The British recognized this trend by designating the 1907 conference
between governments an imperial rather than colonial conference. And
they now began to make real changes in the military system.49 The eventual
outcome – more than half a century after the emergence of self-governing
270 B.P. Farrell
colonies – was something approaching an organized system for collecting,
analysing and disseminating information, allocating resources and pursu-
ing a comprehensive grand strategy. This progress rested on three founda-
tions: clear external threats, functional integration and the messy interplay
between mixed sentiments in both London and the Dominions.
The first important step was a typically liberal empire compromise: the
Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), established in 1902, confirmed in
1904 as a permanent body. The only permanent member was the prime
minister, who was expected to invite whomever he felt should attend. For
the first time, a Cabinet-level body held a watching brief on all defence-
related questions. Its effectiveness was reinforced by the Esher Report of
1904, which triggered a sweeping overhaul of the WO and British Army –
directed from 1906 by the great reforming Secretary of State for War
and Liberal imperialist Richard Burdon Haldane. Ad hoc personal admin-
istration gave way to an Army Board, General Staff and administration by
committee. British governments were soon discussing reports and recom-
mendations on all manner of defence issues in a more organized fashion
than ever before.50 A key question was, of course, how to relate these new
mechanisms to imperial defence.
It is right to emphasize, as most scholars have, that the CID was not an
‘imperial committee of defence’, which would have required the Domin-
ions to maintain a permanent representative in London. Given the sub-
jects it would have discussed, and the pressures it would have faced, this
would quickly have produced confusion about where power rested: with
the prime minister at home or his agent in London? The long time
required to travel from Ottawa to London was not the real obstacle; the
telegraph worked very well. The real obstacle was the prestige the Empire
still commanded in the Dominions. Laurier was not the only Dominion
prime minister who feared he would have to compete with a representat-
ive in London to be seen by press and public as the most authoritative
Canadian voice on any defence issue. National leaders such as Deakin
and Laurier believed such friction would undo the patient progress
towards developing a real sense of identity in their own country. With
identity, they believed, would come a sense of responsibility and the will
to address their own challenges. In any case, the British realized that
permanent Dominion representation on such a committee would
produce demands for a real voice, which might lead to pressure for prior-
ities they did not share. So they met in the middle, in a committee of the
British government. This committee invited Dominion representatives
when the British thought it desirable or necessary – and they attended
when their own prime minister agreed they should do so. The CID
rapidly established itself because it worked for everybody. It provided a
badly needed forum that did not automatically commit or compromise
any government. But even its success reflected the friction within the
imperial defence. The Canadian government kept it at arm’s length
 Coalition of the usually willing 271
because Laurier and his colleagues realized that as a body chaired by the
British prime minister it would command much prestige across the
Empire. That meant the British government could use it as an instrument
to pursue their own agenda.51
The closer the British kept to functional integration and looser consul-
tation, the more they succeeded in bringing the Dominions into a viable
system of imperial defence. Richard Preston presented a powerful inter-
pretation of this time of real change: the 1902 conference rejected the
idea of centralizing defence policy under British control in peacetime, so
the 1907 conference turned towards the alternative of cooperation
between partners. But as Preston noted, the road ahead remained diffi-
cult. Building a system required the British government, navy, army and
Dominion governments to agree. Haldane argued the governments
should start with what they agreed on, a ‘common conception’ of grand
strategy. According to the paper he presented to the conference, the WO
would rely on ‘the imperial loyalty of the people of the various Domin-
ions’ and work towards practical cooperation rather than central control
of one policy. Haldane presented three broad strategic maxims as the
basis for cooperation: naval supremacy was the key; each region of the
Empire should do as much as it could to defend itself; in a real emer-
gency, the Empire must pool its resources for mutual support. None of
these points was new and all were subject to interpretation. But this time,
they made an impact. Their strong rejection of central control over
Dominion forces made leaders like Laurier and his minister of militia,
Frederick Borden, more willing to consider ways to make those forces
more efficient. Haldane helped by emphasizing voluntary cooperation
and functional integration as opposed to central control. The conference
agreed that functional integration seemed like a prudent way to make the
Empire’s military forces more effective as a team, should it be necessary to
bring them together.52
Notwithstanding this success, the familiar arguments were far from
resolved. Canadian willingness to embrace functional integration was the
result of the testy culmination of the British role in the defence of Canada.
When the army garrisons of Esquimalt and Halifax left in 1905, the Admi-
ralty bluntly said that since Canada showed little inclination to defend itself,
it was no longer inclined to make its defence a priority at the time of war.
The British faced growing problems in Europe and had already decided to
cede strategic dominance in the Americas to the US. The army vainly
objected because dropping all contingency plans to defend Canada
reduced its prospective role in imperial defence in general and, therefore,
its influence. Laurier promised to take full responsibility for defending the
naval bases. He went so far as to state Canada should pay the full cost of its
own peacetime defence. The Toronto Globe and Mail agreed with many
British officials that the Canadian promise would be used as an excuse to
make it impossible for Canada to send another overseas contingent, should
272 B.P. Farrell
another ‘British war’ break out far away. Laurier kept walking the tightrope.
Canadian anger over being ‘abandoned’ to the Americans gave him the
political muscle to assert this more national agenda, but strong imperial ties
kept him focused on functional integration. The strongest was the most
obvious, as Roger Sarty pointed out:

Under the imperial system, Canada lacked the powers, information

and mechanisms to make comprehensive foreign and defence policy.
In the absence of serious external threats there was no imperative to
acquire those means.

However much Laurier wanted Canada to grow into its own, this did not
mean severing ties with the UK. Canada remained part of a British-centred
world order; therefore, it remained interested in imperial defence and had
to be pragmatic.53
Haldane and the Dominion leaders took functional integration an
important step further by agreeing to establish an Imperial General Staff
(IGS). The agreement spelt out the common ground they were finding
then:

To undertake the preparation of schemes of defence on a common

principle, and (without in the least interfering in questions of
command and administration) at the request of the respective govern-
ments, to advise as to the training, education and war organization of
the forces of the Crown in every part of the Empire.

This struck the very balance that now seemed workable. The idea was to
build a system from the ground up, creating an effective military instru-
ment that would still leave all governments free to decide how to combine
and control it. There were practical limits. The gap in capabilities was so
large that in practice the flow of doctrine, procedures and influence went
almost entirely from the British to the Dominions. But the breakthrough
was real. The WO settled for trying to make Dominion forces as British as
possible in how they organized, thought, trained and fought. Canada set
the tone by establishing its own General Staff to work with the IGS when it
was formally constituted in 1909. Australia and New Zealand followed suit
and the Dominion General Staffs became autonomous bodies responsible
to their own governments, but working in all other respects within a loose
British military family. The Dominion governments hoped this would
allow them to build up more effective military forces with British help
without surrendering control to the British government.54
One expression of the new approach came in late 1909 when Lord
Kitchener, then the most famous soldier in the Empire, accepted an invi-
tation to tour Australia and New Zealand. Kitchener was received like a
modern pop idol wherever he went. The press of the crowd at Dunedin
 Coalition of the usually willing 273
was so great that Kitchener never reached the South African War veterans
he came to inspect. He supported such Australian measures as compulsory
part-time military training and a military college, which helped over time
to build up Australia’s ground forces. They needed the help because in
Australia, as well as the mother country, the influence of the Blue Water
school of grand strategy was very strong. Its champions argued that if
imperial defence rested first on the navy, the Dominions should concen-
trate on reinforcing the navy as best they could. Even though the Aus-
tralian government brought Kitchener over to use his prestige to pursue
their own agenda, his visit culminated in an agreement to establish an
Australian navy.55 The progress galvanized by Haldane’s army reforms was
real but could only influence, not build, any system of imperial defence.
Sea power remained central, as he conceded.
However much Dominion leaders might want to expand their own
status and autonomy, from the turn of the century they faced a stark limit-
ing factor: great power tensions. The anti-British feeling during the South
African War paled beside a truly seminal development: Germany’s
decision to build a great ocean-going navy. This challenge produced a
fundamental overhaul in British foreign policy. In the first decade of the
new century, the British not only allied with Japan and withdrew from fric-
tion with the US, but they also resolved outstanding disputes with the
powers that for decades had stood as the main threats, France and Russia.
This untied British hands to allow them to respond to changes in what
always concerned them most, the balance of power in Europe. After 1904,
the British drifted steadily towards France and Russia in an anti-German
alignment. No formal commitments were ever made, but the connection
rested on something far stronger: British self-interest. Germany mounted
what appeared to be a challenge to both the continental balance of power
and British domination of the seas. The Admiralty responded by launch-
ing a new generation of capital ships with advanced technology and start-
ing to concentrate the navy closer to home. The first decision set off a
naval arms race by reducing the RN’s margin of strength over the German
navy, as both started nearly from scratch to build a modern battle line; the
implications of the second for imperial defence were obvious.
The old debate about forces on the spot now became public and pas-
sionate. One rising star in Australia, Capt. W.R. Cresswell, argued in 1905
that Dominion naval forces could be seen as ‘night watchmen’, standing
guard at the warehouse, backed up by the RN as the police. But by 1908,
Cresswell warned that concentrating the fleet in British waters left the
Empire in Asia exposed to other powers. His complaints did not persuade
an Admiralty determined never again to tie forces down in local waters.
Yet the hard-pressed Admiralty now realized it could not satisfy the
Dominions by insisting that strategic priorities must override all other
concerns. At the 1907 conference the British proposed to expand the
East Indies, China and Australia Stations, provided the Dominions made
274 B.P. Farrell
a substantial contribution and the squadrons remained under Admiralty
control. Australians became concerned about British press complaints
that the ‘White Australia’ policy should not be allowed to provoke any
clash with Japan. Deakin ostentatiously invited the American ‘Great
White Fleet’ to visit Australia on its show-the-flag world tour, which it did
to great local acclaim, and some British irritation, in autumn 1908.
Growing pressure to strengthen Australia’s own defences merged with
concern about sea power in general that year, when a full-scale political
crisis erupted in the UK over reports that the Germans were racing ahead
in naval construction.56 The pressure forced the British government to
increase naval spending at the expense of social programmes and pro-
voked what became the most important meeting yet regarding imperial
defence: the Imperial Conference in 1909.
Alarm in the UK over naval rivalry with Germany drove home to
Dominion leaders the uncomfortable fact that they remained dependent
on British power, but had scant access to information. The Australian
government called for consultation and Laurier said Canada should ‘carry
out whatever plan should be devised through such consultation’. Both
Dominions presented British agreement to meet as evidence their status
as defence partners was being duly noted. They were not wrong. The
result was an attitude change D.C. Gordon called a ‘minor miracle’; other
scholars did not go that far, but all agreed British proposals at the 1909
conference were a sudden shift. A.S. Thompson suggested this was the
moment when the navy gave up the argument the Dominions must hand
over what they had to a common pool and joined Haldane in pragmati-
cally trying to build a defence system reconciled with Dominion political
and strategic imperatives. All scholars agree the 1909 meeting was a
remarkable event that made one thing clear to all concerned: they must
find a new way to work together in imperial defence.57
The most interesting British proposal was a bid to revive the old idea of
Dominion contributions to the RN, on a more systematic basis. If each
partner contributed money, ships or men based on its share of the
Empire’s maritime trade, the Dominions plus India would provide 25 per
cent of the RN. This proposal went nowhere because the Dominions were
not prepared to write cheques for the RN ‘unless it was clear the fleet was
capable of meeting their defensive needs’. And they were alarmed in 1909
by the massive concentration of British naval power in home waters. The
CID therefore suggested a ‘middle course’. While the fleet must concen-
trate in home waters, the Admiralty must not neglect the Empire overseas.
That meant securing Dominion help and addressing Dominion concerns.
Prime Minister Herbert Asquith struck a CID subcommittee to review the
problem, charging it to review: 1) how Dominion forces could best con-
tribute to imperial defence; 2) how to reconcile unity of command with
local responsibility for local forces; 3) how to make interchanges of ships
and men effective without disrupting lines of responsibility; 4) each
 Coalition of the usually willing 275
Dominion’s naval defence; and 5) the legal status of Dominion forces,
especially outside their own waters.58
Laurier felt any promise to hand men or money over to the RN was a
more direct threat to Canada than even the troubling European situ-
ation. He stood firm on the principle that Canada must decide for itself
not only what to do, but also how to do it. All this did was keep his
government on the hot seat. Empire-minded Canadians feared his insis-
tence on autonomy would undermine military effectiveness. But ‘nation-
alists’ remained afraid that officers, officials and opinion leaders would
not resist British appeals. Laurier’s compromise, to establish a small
Canadian navy, angered nearly everyone. Canadian imperialists derided it
as a ‘tinpot navy’, while nationalists saw it dragging them towards entan-
glement. The growing crisis in Europe made the naval controversy a
factor in Laurier’s defeat in the election of 1911. It was not unrelated to
the more burning issue of reciprocity and trade with the Americans in a
Canada now alarmed by tension across the ocean and more mindful of
Macdonald’s old ‘lowest common denominator’.59
Australia and New Zealand meanwhile moved in the other direction.
They accepted an Admiralty proposal in 1909 to establish distinct ‘fleet
units’ in their waters, to which they would contribute ships, as part of a Far
Eastern Fleet. The units would remain under Admiralty control, but in
normal times operate on station. This plan promised to replace capital
ships called home to face the German threat, promote Dominion identity
and reassure public opinion – but not tie Admiralty hands in wartime. It
was indeed the foundations of a workable imperial defence system, but
the exception proved the rule: Canada opted out. On top of everything
else, it needed to cover two coasts and shied away from the political furore
that would erupt if the government favoured one over the other.60
Nevertheless, by late 1911 many interested parties felt the Empire was at
last responding coherently to real threats. The armed forces were making
progress on functional integration. The Dominions and mother country
accepted loose but reasonable consultation. The hope that a less unequal
partnership would in the end produce greater unity and power spread
from imperialists in the Dominions back to the mother country, prompting
the Imperial Federation (Defence) League to change its name to the Impe-
rial Cooperation League. Even the Canadian situation seemed promising
when the Conservatives took power under Robert Borden, who criticized
Laurier for not pressing for a greater voice in imperial defence.61
Three years later, the British and their Dominions marched united into
the most dangerous war the Empire had ever faced. Nevertheless, some
historians argue that the partners did not in fact build a sound system of
imperial defence before this greatest test. One broad school of thought
blames the Dominions, another the British. The most convincing interpre-
tation, however, argues that imperial defence had become as systematic as
could reasonably be expected when the test came.
276 B.P. Farrell
Some recent scholarship points to the Dominions as it addresses the
question posed at the start of this study: did the British receive enough in
return to justify the burden they carried to defend the Empire? Two
studies bluntly argue ‘no’. Cain and Hopkins, in their magisterial reassess-
ment of British imperialism, argue that from 1860 to 1912 the UK spent
£1.14 per capita annually on defence, some 37 per cent of public spend-
ing, while the self-governing colonies spent merely 12 per cent, or under 4
per cent. This allowed the latter to spend on their own development, espe-
cially by tapping into the financial resources of the City of London. Loans
and bond issues rested on the protection provided by British power, in
effect an invisible subsidy. Davis and Huttenback go further, arguing that
over this half century the UK had ‘the highest per capita defence spend-
ing in the world’ because it was forced to subsidize the defence of the
Empire. Their figures suggest the following comparative defence expendi-
tures, population-weighted as percentages of the government budget:

UK ‘Dominions’

1860–64 36.4 1.2

1880–84 30.9 3.6
1900–04 54.5 4.7
1910–12 37.8 5.6

They argue that New Zealand was the only Dominion whose defence spend-
ing was ‘vaguely commensurate with its constitutional status’. Trade within
the Empire was ‘significant but not crucial’ for the UK, but vital for the
Dominions – 83 per cent of New Zealand’s exports went to the UK in
1910–12, for example. From the Mills Committee on, no British govern-
ment found a way to adjust the burdens of imperial defence more equi-
tably. Those burdens amounted, in financial terms, to the UK subsidizing
the development of its Empire – and no one benefitted more than the
Dominions who ‘paid for little and received a great deal’.62
Davis and Huttenback note the British were consistently able to
compel India and dependent colonies to spend much higher percentages
on defence than the Dominions. Even scholars less focused on the
bottom line argue the British retained control of the foreign policy of
ambitious Dominions because they ‘guaranteed and largely paid for their
defence’.63 The implication is clear: to build a really effective system of
imperial defence, the British should have insisted every measure of influ-
ence and control they ceded to the Dominions be matched by a greater
contribution from them. Because they did not, the system became an
interplay between British willingness to support a common cause and
Dominion tendencies to exploit this for their own direct interests. Earlier
scholarship resisted this tendency to evaluate imperial defence in terms
of financial cost and benefit, for a good reason. While the British-centred
 Coalition of the usually willing 277
world order that bound the self-governing Empire together certainly
rested on finance and trade, it was never something that could be
reduced to those considerations alone. They were always entangled with a
sense of identity, a way of life and traditions of politics, culture and
society that all parties wished to preserve and promote. This accounted
for much of the ambivalence with which Canadians viewed their mighty
republican neighbour as well as for Australian pursuit of a ‘White
Australia’. The fact of complications within that broader sense of a
shared way of life – such as Afrikaner, French Canadian and Irish atti-
tudes towards all things British, and frequent resentment over perceived
British condescension – only reinforced the main point. Defence was
never just about the bottom line. Examining status and spending against
that broader canvas prompted some scholars to argue quite differently:
the British very nearly jeopardized a workable system of imperial defence
by reneging on sensible arrangements after 1911.
Gordon made the strongest charge: the British simply reneged on the
1909 ‘fleet unit’ agreement, and this was a serious development. The 1909
consensus envisaged an Admiralty accepting global responsibility, but pro-
viding for distinct ‘sister navies’ rather than one big navy, coming together
under central direction only in wartime. But after another spike in Euro-
pean tension in the summer of 1911, the new first lord, Winston
Churchill, listened to Admiralty voices that preferred direct contribution
to the RN. From 1912, Churchill concentrated nearly all the navy’s capital
ships, thereby scuttling the 1909 scheme. This occurred just after the
Royal Canadian and Royal Australian Navies came into being. There is
evidence to justify Gordon’s argument. Senator E.D. Miller, Australian
defence minister, publicly denounced the Admiralty for unilaterally scrap-
ping a definite scheme of imperial cooperation. His complaint was echoed
even by the more ‘loyal’ New Zealand government, which publicly sug-
gested the British government ‘has failed to carry out her obligation’.
Lambert agrees with Gordon that Churchill provoked a backlash and
increased the strain on the RN at a very awkward time. The implication is,
of course, that the British were not willing to act on Prime Minister
Asquith’s declaration that shared defence must mean some shared direc-
tion, and that this blocked evolution towards any ‘commonwealth
defence’.64
This last suggestion points towards the most convincing interpretation.
Given prevailing circumstances, imperial defence was as systematic as
could reasonably be expected by 1914. Canada and Australia gained
greater control over their own forces, but by pursuing functional integra-
tion they bolstered the imperial stamp on the professional identity of those
forces. The truth is that every government had no choice but to manage
the tension between imperial interdependence and their own agendas.
The British found it difficult to share the direction of defence policies
with governments that lacked experience, resources and, in their view, the
278 B.P. Farrell
necessary breadth of strategic vision. As prime minister of Canada Robert
Borden revived the idea of making a direct contribution to the RN
because he drew the opposite conclusion from Laurier: under prevailing
conditions, the greater danger to Canada was the rising military threat to
British power, not being entangled with that power. But in return, Borden
pressed hard for a greater voice in the making of British policy. The Cana-
dian contribution did not materialize, but neither did greater Canadian
access to the grand strategy.65 The main reason was the approach of great
power war.
The British not only pulled capital ships out of the Pacific, but they also
pulled them out of the Mediterranean. Asquith’s government entered
into highly confidential de facto strategic commitments to stand with
France against any German attack, in discussions that began as early as
1905. Many British Cabinet ministers, let alone Dominion governments,
did not learn the full extent of these commitments until 1911. The funda-
mental realignment of British foreign policy was responding to what
appeared to be a German threat to the European balance of power. That
acted as a powerful undertow that pulled all other arrangements and dis-
cussions about imperial defence along with it. Concentrating capital ships
provoked much greater public willingness to support ‘sister navies’, but
these navies and the governments that established them were tied to what-
ever move the UK made. None of them could have been organized, led or
equipped without British assistance. Canada’s decision to organize a
‘tinpot navy’ could be tolerated because there was no direct threat to
Canada anyway, and some kind of Canadian capability was better than
none at all. On 4 October 1913, the battle cruiser Australia led one British
and two Australian cruisers, plus three Australian destroyers, into Sydney
harbour to hoist the flag of the Australian Fleet. Their entry ‘provoked a
nationalistic fervour among Australians never before seen’. But even
nationalist Australians saw this, correctly, as securing British dominance of
the sea lanes between them and the rest of the Empire.66
Nicholas Mansergh’s focus on constitutional development prompted
him to conclude that progress towards a system of imperial defence
before 1914 was ‘remarkable’, especially because it stemmed mainly from
arguments made by the Dominions. But the British also deserve some
credit. Haldane in particular grasped in time the crucial point: in any real
crisis the Dominions could be counted on, but it would do more harm
than good to try to force them to make commitments in advance. This
pragmatism, which was smoother for the army than the navy, but notice-
able for both, made possible something that turned out to be essential. If
the Dominions did rally to support another ‘British war’, their forces
could step right into a larger British military organization with very little
professional adjustment.67
An audit of imperial defence on the eve of the Great War is revealing.
There was no imperial government sitting in one parliament making
 Coalition of the usually willing 279
policy binding on all. Grand strategy was defined by the British. The CID
provided reports to the British government, which started to circulate
more of them to Dominion governments; but neither they nor it were
bound by its recommendations. The Crown united the Empire’s armed
forces in law and name, but not in practical command. And the only
system for allocating resources was the assumption that in a major war
Dominion forces would place themselves at the disposal of the Admiralty
and the WO. The concrete side of the system was functional integration
of navies and armies that were indeed coming close to being branches of
the same military tree. Although this was clear progress from the 1850s, it
was still not, however, the real strength of the system. The most important
bonds were indeed the natural bonds. Sentiment was stronger than con-
tract. Rather than pursue Disraeli’s ‘military code’ or Chamberlain’s
‘Greater Britain,’ the imperial partners settled, by trial and error, on Mac-
donald’s ‘lowest common denominator’. That meant living with Domin-
ion tariff policies that hurt British free trade, and nursing infant ‘sister’
forces that, man for man, might have been more cost-effective in British
units. But it also meant the real prospect of help from Dominion govern-
ments who probably were better placed to deliver as much military power
as their countries could generate to face any real crisis. Porter made the
crucial point: the British-defined world order made the British Empire
the principal defender of the prevailing global commercial, financial and
territorial alignments. Any threat to these alignments threatened British
power. That would endanger the only world the Dominions could move
through towards the future. The British and Dominions both decided to
accept, however unevenly, the logic of their own concepts of liberal
empire. That made a true imperial defence possible. The typically British
‘non-system’ of imperial defence in place by 1914 could work effectively
only in the most dangerous of crises, because only then would the Domin-
ions be sure to rally. But the fact they would do just that gave the Empire
a defence system that in the supreme test of the Great War more than
earned any financial subsidy the British paid to build it in the first place.
Mansergh presented the most familiar interpretation of imperial
defence in the Great War: the Dominions’ war efforts made it clear they
were ‘states that were in the process of becoming nations’. Most scholars
agree the war produced confusing signals about the Empire’s future for
those who fought it; some emphasized greater cohesion, others saw diver-
gence. Judd and Slinn argued the British hoped to build on what they saw
as a wartime spirit of cooperation and practice of centralization, ‘but the
real portents were those of disintegration, not of unity’. While many
British leaders did harbour such hopes, the dialogue remained a confus-
ing one that crossed national lines. The importance of constitutional
change remains influential in scholarship; John Darwin recently argued
that the war shaped what by 1931 became a ‘Third Empire’ of real part-
ners, the ultimate triumph of the ‘liberal empire’ concept. But the
280 B.P. Farrell
Dominions did not go to war to fight for the right to become fully
independent states – so constitutional change must be set in broader
context. Porter argued that the most vital interest of UK in 1914 was to
defend the world economic order it built the previous century; colonies,
including Dominions, were part of that order, but not its very essence.
Formal ties of empire could change, if by doing so they helped preserve
the global economic order on which the British civilization rested. This
argument built a bridge between realist interpretations emphasizing
deeper national interests in British policy and ‘liberal empire’ arguments
insisting that constitutional evolution was a success, not failure. Darwin
put it nicely:

In the twentieth century British world power came to depend more

and more upon partnership with the White Dominions. . . . In the era
of the two world wars their economic resources, manpower reserves
and political fidelity turned them into vital Imperial assets.68

Imperial defence succeeded in both world wars because the partnership

remained strong but flexible enough to meet the most dangerous chal-
lenge: to defend a world order the British and Dominions found they
could live with, one open to change and compromise – even if that meant
changing and compromising.
The British Empire lurched into the Great War in typical confusion,
but the reason sheds important light on imperial defence. Ireland, the
most reluctant realm of the UK, stood poised on the brink of civil war and
the British Army faced incipient mutiny. Suddenly, Germany launched an
all-out offensive to destroy the balance of power in Europe and make itself
the continental hegemon. This eclipsed all other concerns. British world
power made Britain’s territorial empire possible, much more than the
other way around – and the prerequisite to that power was a satisfactory
balance of power in Europe. The British government declared war on 4
August 1914 to defend the British-defined world order, not to rescue
‘plucky little Belgium’. Prevailing constitutional law meant that the king’s
declaration of war, an act of foreign policy, automatically put the entire
Empire in a state of war. But the war dragged on so long, and became so
violent, that it tested prevailing arrangements for imperial defence
beyond their defined limits. The challenge was fundamental: what was the
purpose of the war and, therefore, how must the Empire fight it?
The very ambiguity built into the ‘liberal empire’ shaped everyone’s
response. While the king committed the Dominions to war, only their gov-
ernments could decide how to carry out that commitment. Macdonald’s
lowest common denominator made it possible for the Dominions to march
in 1914, to do what he always promised: to defend British power itself. But
the war soon escalated to a level that forced the Empire to tackle something
it did not plan for: total war. Four themes shaped the Great War for the
 Coalition of the usually willing 281
Dominions: their military and economic contributions and the price they
paid for both; divisions in public opinion about the war; the central direc-
tion of the war; the question of status. These are best examined as they
occurred, entangled with each other. The course of the war was the driving
force in all areas, in three broad phases. From 1914 to 1916, the Empire
mobilized to meet an ever expanding war and struggled to cope with the
strain. In 1917, sheer pressure forced what looked like a breakthrough on
the fundamental questions of direction and status. And in 1918, the coali-
tion of the usually willing drove to total victory – but then faced the issue of
where to go next.
Identity is a currently fashionable buzzword in academic history, but
applying it to the Dominions and the Great War is not just trendy. More
than half the volunteers who formed the first contingents of the Aus-
tralian and Canadian expeditionary forces in 1914 were British-born
recent immigrants, for whom ‘mother country’ was literal. When the bel-
ligerents found themselves fighting a grim battle of attrition that few
anticipated, identity went to war as well. Germans were urged to defend
European kultur from Slavic barbarism; the Allies were to put Prussian
militarism and ‘the beastly Hun’ back in their cage. The Dominions
played a major role here by merely existing. Imperialists presented the
‘liberal empire’ as expressing the values the Allies stood for: an evolving
community connected by shared ideals, customs and beliefs, rather than
by power and coercion. Constructionists such as Lionel Curtis, a leading
member of the Round Table lobby group devoted to imperial federation,
tried to seize the moment by concentrating on the Dominions. War
would bring them and the UK closer together, forcing them to build a
more organized association in order to prevail. The war did bring them
closer together, but most scholars argued it brought out even more
strongly the particular situations of each Dominion. Robert Holland saw
this in the connection between contribution and status: Canada used it to
press very hard for a larger voice in directing the war, but South Africa
used it to stay more aloof from all general commitments. Constant
tension between unity and diversity did indeed characterize imperial
defence at war.69
The Canadian experience was not untypical. Borden broke off his
summer holiday as the crisis mounted, privately noting: ‘Almost imposs-
ible for us to keep out if France is involved’ – and by ‘us’ he certainly
meant the British Empire, not just Canada. On 1 August he sent two
telegrams that summarized the prevailing condition of imperial defence.
One asked for ‘any suggestions and advice which Imperial naval and mili-
tary authorities may deem it expedient to offer’ and hinted ‘a consider-
able force would be available for service abroad . . .’. The other, offered
for publication, assured the British that if war broke out, ‘the Canadian
people will be united in a common resolve to put forth every effort and to
make every sacrifice necessary to ensure the integrity and maintain the
282 B.P. Farrell
honour of our Empire . . .’. Laurier matched the moment, reminding
Canadians he had:

often declared that if the mother country were ever in danger, or if

danger ever threatened, Canada would render assistance to the fullest
extent of her power. . . . When the call comes our answer goes at once,
and it goes in the classical language of the British answer to the call to
duty: Ready, aye, ready.

Canada’s leaders asked the British to advise them how to mobilize the
country for war, but with a twist. Canadian forces would come en masse,
not just Canadian volunteers for British forces. The British accepted this
and every other such offer, albeit the Admiralty placed all the King’s
navies under its operational control. Dominion forces prepared to serve
with, rather than as subunits of, British forces.70
Canada’s early war effort was marred by a glaring contrast between the
organization and direction of its military forces and the political commit-
ment of its government. Borden became one of three Empire prime min-
isters whose individual contribution seriously influenced the course of the
war. From the start, he argued with conviction that the British Empire was
fighting a just war, to which Canada must contribute all it could for as
long as necessary. But the deepest difference between Borden on the one
hand and Macdonald and Laurier on the other boiled down to one thing:
Borden had to do in practice what they faced only in principle. Borden set
two conditions for producing all Canada could offer, and he pressed them
hard: overseas service would be voluntary and Canada would demand a
voice in directing the war that matched its fighting contribution.71 Unfor-
tunately for Borden, three problems loomed. First, the expansion of the
war threatened to dwarf all early plans for mobilizing troops and produc-
ing what they needed. Second, important constituencies remained luke-
warm, especially French Canada, which produced only a small fraction of
volunteers. Finally, his minister of militia was Sam Hughes.
To call Hughes eccentric would be kind. Hughes discarded all existing
plans and arrangements and behaved like a medieval baron, calling Cana-
dians to flock to the standard spontaneously. They came in great
numbers, but an entirely new base, Camp Valcartier outside Quebec City,
had to be built to house and train them. It took months to sort out the
confusion, but when they finally went overseas, they did so with an inferior
weapon: the Canadian-made Ross rifle, adopted before the war and pro-
moted by Hughes as an expression of national pride. This classic example
of ‘imperial nationalism’ landed Canada’s first contingent with a weapon
so prone to misfire that the soldiers soon learned to trade for British rifles
or scavenge German ones. Worse, Hughes set up an over-elaborate
command structure, in France and the UK, which confused the Canadian
chain of command. All this made it harder for Canada’s soldiers to fight
 Coalition of the usually willing 283
effectively. When the battles of mid-1915 produced casualties far greater
than expected, this shocked Borden, the country and indeed the Empire
into confronting the fact that this was a war that would not tolerate ama-
teurism and unforced errors.72
Those same battles also made it clear, the fundamental British policy,
to fight the war without disturbing ‘business as usual’, could not succeed.
The fighting power of the German Army, plus the ability of modern indus-
trial powers to generate tremendous resources, and the will to use them,
forced the British government to rethink its war policy. They responded
by expanding the war vertically and horizontally. Asquith reluctantly reor-
ganized his government as a coalition and accepted a Ministry of Muni-
tions, under David Lloyd George, to harness British industrial power to
meet the apparently insatiable demands of industrial war. Kitchener, now
minister for war, strove to expand the British Army tenfold – primarily to
support the main theatre of war, the Western Front in France. Meanwhile,
Allied forces launched a major offensive against Turkey, to try to outflank
the deadlock on that Western Front. Australian and New Zealand citizen
soldiers, merged into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
(ANZAC), were committed in force to that offensive. Their eight-month
battle at Gallipoli made less of an impact on the war than on antipodean
perceptions of themselves and their role in the Empire, then and later.
When the Allied high command called off the battle by evacuating their
forces in December, failure only magnified what later became two myths –
one of nation-building, the other of British cynicism. But at the time the
hard fighting and shocking casualty lists produced both pride in Domin-
ion contributions to the war effort and increased determination to make
sure those sacrifices produced results.73
Borden led the way in person, visiting Europe in August 1915 and
inspecting his troops. He was appalled by what he found: the grinding
battles of attrition on the Western Front were chewing up Canadian and
British soldiers to no apparent effect, while the British government strug-
gled to supply them with the munitions and equipment they needed. But
Borden found it difficult to prod information about grand strategy and
war production out of the British government, let alone secure real con-
sultation. This produced a testy exchange with Andrew Bonar Law, the
colonial secretary, regarding how the Dominions could express their
views about directing the war. Law was complacent: perhaps Borden
could suggest a mechanism by which the Empire’s governments could
consult on policy without compromising either military security or the
responsibility of each to its own Parliament? Borden boiled over on 4
January 1916:

It can hardly be expected that we shall put 400,000 or 500,000 men in

the field and willingly accept the position of having no more voice
and receiving no more consideration than if we were toy automata.
284 B.P. Farrell
Any person cherishing such an expectation harbours an unfortunate
and even dangerous delusion. Is this war being waged by the UK
alone or is it a war waged by the whole Empire? If I am correct in sup-
posing that the second hypothesis must be accepted then why do the
statesmen of the British Isles arrogate to themselves solely the
methods by which it shall be carried on in the various spheres of
warlike activity and the steps which shall be taken to assure victory and
a lasting peace? It is for them to suggest the method and not for us. If
there is no available method and we are expected to continue in the
role of automata the whole situation must be reconsidered.

Hard on the heels of this exchange Borden received a visitor en route to

London: William ‘Billy’ Hughes, pugnacious prime minister of Australia.
Hughes shared Borden’s commitment to the war and his frustration with
British attitudes. He and Borden agreed they must publicly pressure the
British to consult the Dominions about running the war. Such rare lateral
consultation spooked Asquith into inviting Hughes to attend two Cabinet
meetings in London in March. But at those meetings, he tried to quaran-
tine Hughes, making it clear the invitations were a courtesy, not a prece-
dent. This was unwise. Hughes spent the rest of his visit making fiery
speeches not only rallying support for the war effort, but also pressing the
British to recognize the growing role of the Dominions.74
British reluctance to share any voice in war direction was by now badly
misplaced. Borden’s bluntness was a warning they needed to take seri-
ously. He was by far the most determined supporter of total war in high
office, never faltering, as the war expanded, from his conviction this was a
just and necessary struggle in which Canada must do its utmost. But after
more than a year and a half of war, Dominion contributions were indis-
pensable in every theatre of war and all aspects of the war effort. Borden
and Billy Hughes pressed their case relentlessly. British concerns about
the inexperience and professional shortcomings of Dominion forces,
especially at the higher command level, were not always misplaced. The
prolonged confusion in the Canadian chain of command inflicted by Sam
Hughes testified to that. But the monstrous growth of the war, the sheer
need for every man, penny and bullet, made such qualms seem ever more
like luxuries the Empire could no longer afford.75
The need to campaign against German colonial forces in East Africa
forced the British to rely heavily on South African forces. Dominion and
colonial forces continued to support the Middle East campaign against the
Turks. Dominion naval forces and individual sailors reinforced the RN in
both its anticlimactic Battle of Jutland and the even more desperate
struggle to protect the Atlantic lifeline to the mother country. British
troops had to suppress an uprising in Dublin; the resulting punishments of
the ringleaders sparked an Irish backlash that boded ill for the future. But
above all, the great Battles of the Somme bled Kitchener’s new armies
 Coalition of the usually willing 285
white, including Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and colonial forces
drawn into the main struggle on the Western Front. The year 1916 pushed
the Empire over the edge into total war. Dominion reactions signalled
both how much and how little this escalation affected imperial defence.
On the one hand, men flocked to the colours. By the end of 1916, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand maintained ten infantry divisions, a quarter of
the strength of the British forces on the Western Front. On the other hand,
each indicated their intention to participate on their own terms. The Aus-
tralian people supported the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), but in two
national referenda rejected conscription for overseas service. Borden
finally sacked Sam Hughes and took steps to professionalize Canada’s mili-
tary direction, but the strain of battle increased domestic political pressure
to introduce conscription. Borden decided to grasp that nettle, to meet
what he regarded as a pledge of honour to the army in the field. In return,
he made it clear Canada could only face the debate this must provoke if its
voice was clearly being heard in running the war.76
The decisive breakthrough came in London in December when Lloyd
George ousted Asquith. The ‘Welsh Wizard’ formed a coalition govern-
ment dedicated to prosecuting total war. He made two other moves of
lasting importance. First, he established a permanent Cabinet Secretariat
to bring more order and system into not only directing the war, but also
governing Britain and its Empire. Second, he invited the Dominion prime
ministers to come to London to consult with his new government on how
to prosecute the war. Borden seized the invitation, and opportunity, with
both hands, crossing the Atlantic again in February 1917. After visiting his
army in the field, the Canadian prime minister returned to London more
determined than ever to parlay the massive effort his army and nation
were making into a real voice in directing the war. This was only
underlining an established policy: Canada could only wage total war if its
voice were heard. But this time, he received a very different reception.
Lloyd George was as dedicated as Borden to total war. The jarring changes
he made in British administration, and the coalition he formed with
Conservative politicians and imperial constructionists such as Bonar Law
and Milner, were definitive repudiations of ‘business as usual’ liberalism.
But the escalation of the war not only brought him to power, but it also
made him a supplicant. The problem was the bloody stalemate on the
Western Front. American pressure for a compromise peace needed to be
resisted, and British Empire forces needed many more men and a lot
more munitions. To meet those challenges, the new British government
needed full Dominion support. This time the Canadian prime minister
saw eye to eye with his British counterpart, who made sure he was briefed
in full on British war direction and grand strategy. By the time the formal
Cabinet meetings began on 20 March, Lloyd George and Borden set the
agenda by agreeing that the Empire must fight total war to total victory
and pay any price necessary to win that victory.77
286 B.P. Farrell
Lloyd George’s summons in spring 1917 produced high drama regard-
ing imperial defence – and also generated confusion and false hopes,
then and later. To federationists such as members of the Round Table it
seemed the great day was finally at hand. Lloyd George publicly trans-
formed the discussions with Dominion leaders into what became styled
the Imperial War Cabinet. But this was misleading. There was to be sure
intimate consultation this time. Dominion leaders joined their British col-
leagues for fourteen Cabinet meetings. But it remained consultation; the
British War Cabinet retained executive direction of the war. On the other
hand, few outsiders fully grasped this at the time, especially after Lloyd
George added civilian and military advisers to the discussions and pro-
moted it to a full-blown Imperial War Conference. Through fifteen formal
sessions those at the table discovered first hand that even when the British
‘family’ lined up shoulder to shoulder to fight total war, the complications
of imperial defence did not disappear. Billy Hughes did not arrive until
mid-April; he was delayed in Australia by an acrimonious general election
fought mainly over the question of conscription for overseas service. Louis
Botha was not there; he remained in South Africa to make sure that the
fractious Dominion stayed in the war. Botha was in fact glad not to be
there, sure his counterparts would be ‘a damned nuisance’ getting in the
way of a busy British government. On the other hand, he sent a minister
who soon became a central figure in directing the Empire, let alone impe-
rial defence – General Jan Christian Smuts. Joining Smuts and Borden
were William Ferguson Massey from New Zealand. Together with Lloyd
George and his new coalition they forged a strong commitment to war à
l’outrance. Indeed, as the discussions progressed, the Canadian Corps, now
four divisions strong, fought and won the gruelling battle at Vimy Ridge
that signalled Canada’s military coming of age – and later became its
counterpart to Gallipoli as a nation-building identity forming icon. This
all inspired Borden to ask Canadians to make the ultimate commitment to
total war by accepting general conscription.78
The Imperial War Conference produced the commitment Lloyd
George needed, just in time for the Empire to fight the grim attrition
battles of 1917. Dominion power added a vital increment to British eco-
nomic and military strength everywhere. But practical experience sparked
more movement in arrangements for imperial defence. At the spring con-
ference, Smuts posed the pivotal question: ‘How are we to keep together
this Empire’? Borden proposed what became the official reply, Resolution
IX. The British and Dominion governments agreed the war was too press-
ing to allow them to sit down and formally adjust ‘the constitutional rela-
tions of the component parts of the Empire’, but also agreed this must be
done as soon as the war was over. And any adjustment must start from the
agreement the Dominions were ‘autonomous nations of an Imperial Com-
monwealth . . .’ with a right to ‘an adequate voice in foreign policy’ and to
‘effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important
 Coalition of the usually willing 287
matters of common Imperial concern . . .’. Generations of analysts
focused closely on the constitutional questions raised by this public decla-
ration. Borden’s biographer R.C. Brown credited him with drafting a reso-
lution that formally recognized what the Dominions had already won on
the battlefield. Brown argued Borden saw this agreement as the culmina-
tion of his policy to develop Canada to full nationhood within the Empire.
The formal use of the term ‘Commonwealth’ sparked great attention, as
did the inclusion of India ‘as an important portion of the same’. Massey
certainly saw this as a step towards an Imperial Parliament.79 But the con-
stitutional question was not so clear-cut, and cannot be separated from
other dimensions of imperial defence.
The resolution concluded that future consultation would lead to ‘such
necessary concerted action . . . as the several Governments may deter-
mine’. Smuts saw the problem: it would do more harm than good to try to
combine formal executive centralization in an Imperial Parliament with
the self-governing responsibilities of each separate Dominion Parliament.
Borden summed up the problem by what he wrote: his hope that Resolu-
tion IX would lay the foundation for more systematic direction of a new
Empire of equals had to be expressed in words that stressed the need to
consult rather than centralize. Round Table insiders such as Curtis soon
realized that cooperation in imperial defence was only being pushed
forward by sheer military necessity – and that this dynamic was promoting
Dominion nationalism and sense of identity at least as strongly as any
common imperial identity.80 Resolution Nine turned out to be a promise
by the British to take more seriously Dominion demands for a voice in
return for sharing the burden – rather than any Dominion promise to
commit more closely to any formal imperial machinery. The British had to
make such a promise. They could not fight what now became an all-out
war of attrition without the increment of military and economic strength
the Dominions now provided. On the other hand, Dominion leaders felt
they must provide that increment. The collapse of Russia on the Eastern
Front, the entry of an unprepared US into the war, and especially the ter-
rible clash of armies on the Western Front seemed to frame the issue
starkly: a death struggle between the British-defined world order resting
on British power and a rampant German militarism.
For Borden in particular strategic necessity, not constitutional ambition,
was the driving force. Defeat would mean the destruction of British power,
which would compromise Canada in every dimension. Defeat could not be
contemplated. But to persuade Canadians to accept total war he had to
follow Lloyd George’s example and fashion a coalition. This and the ugly
election campaign that ensued polarized the country in superheated
rhetoric, which Borden did not surmount. With more passion than pru-
dence he slammed Laurier for being cautious, insisting the issue was ‘con-
scription or disgrace’. Borden won his election, but shattered his own party
in the process; anti-conscription riots in Quebec in spring 1918 had to be
288 B.P. Farrell
suppressed with English-speaking troops from Toronto, further poisoning
the national mood. The strain of total war was if anything greater in Aus-
tralia. Billy Hughes could not bring about general conscription despite his
election victory, resorted to heavy-handed censorship and roughly sup-
pressed growing labour discontent. Australian scholar Jeffrey Grey argued
that the Australian war effort in 1917 ‘was in danger of becoming unhinged
and the political climate bordered on the hysterical’.81 At the very height of
total war, Dominion willingness to make massive commitments to imperial
defence underlined once and for all that there would always be real limits
to, and conditions for, such commitments.
This combination also surfaced at the sharp end, but here pre-war
progress in functional integration paid crucial dividends. Grey noted that
when ANZAC troops were committed to the Western Front in 1916, they
soon became ‘an integral part of the great army fielded by Britain and its
Empire, with all which this might entail’. Dominion personnel played a
growing part in the new Royal Flying Corps as individuals in British units,
but on the ground the story took a very different twist. By late 1917, a four-
division Canadian Corps and a five-division Australian Corps, both led by
national commanders, stood in the British Order of Battle on the Western
Front. Increasing Dominion participation in higher command of larger
forces raised the profile of their countries, in battle and at home. Suc-
cesses such as Vimy Ridge gained these forces a largely justified reputation
as divisions of high quality. Friction continued. Some senior British com-
manders carried on treating Dominion troops as forces they could direct
exactly as if they were UK formations; many believed Dominion officers
simply could not handle higher command and should not be entrusted
with it. On the other hand, some Dominion officers and officials uncriti-
cally believed no British officer at any level could lead Dominion troops as
well as their own officers – and too readily assumed British planners were
more careless with Dominion forces than with their own. But against this
friction must be set the fact that more than one-fifth of British fighting
strength on the ground was provided by Dominion forces using the same
weapons, equipment, doctrine and techniques as their British counter-
parts. This simplified the problem of supplying them, a burden increas-
ingly supported by growing Dominion war production, and using them as
an integral part of larger British forces.82 By pressing functional integra-
tion as effectively as he did before the war, Haldane may well have saved
the Empire, and the Allied cause, when it faced the terrible test of total
war in 1917–18 and needed every ounce of strength to prevail.
The strain of war provoked one final crisis in 1918 that again brought
the Empire’s leaders together in consultation. The Russian collapse and
the slow American deployment in France allowed the Germans to launch
one last massive offensive to try to break the Allies while they still could.
Because the French were too drained to do much more than hold their
ground, and the Americans were not yet ready, the blow, and the burden,
 Coalition of the usually willing 289
fell on the armies of the British Empire. They prevailed. One very import-
ant reason they did was the arrangements for imperial defence, which
helped to provide just enough strength to meet the challenge. On the
battlefield, the crisis came when a German breakthrough threatened to
split the British armies and the British High Command tried to throw in
every unit to plug the breach. Lt Gen. Sir Arthur Currie, general officer
commanding the Canadian Corps, flatly refused to allow his formation to
be broken up in detachments and sent into battle under different British
commanders. The Australians went into battle, but under their own able
commander Lt Gen. Sir John Monash. Currie had his way; when British
Empire forces fought the German offensive to a stalemate, the powerful
Canadian Corps stepped forward to join their Australian counterparts to
spearhead the counteroffensive that shattered the German Army. Func-
tional integration helped create British Imperial Armies, rather than a
British Empire Army, that defeated a formidable enemy, which certainly
did threaten British power itself.83 But whereas the battlefield revealed
real progress in arrangements for imperial defence, the council table
more clearly underlined the limits.
The final crisis in war direction arose not between the British and the
Dominions, but between Lloyd George and his own generals. The British
prime minister concluded after the terrible carnage at Passchendaele that
his field commanders were squandering the Empire’s priceless manpower
in futile slogging matches in the trenches. He decided to force them to
accept a new Allied Supreme Command under Marshal Foch – and to call
in his Dominion counterparts to help him undermine their position.
Lloyd George launched a second round of Imperial War Cabinet meetings
on 11 June 1918 by painting a bleak picture of the situation, calling it ‘a
rather dark tunnel’. But by the time the Cabinet and Imperial War Con-
ference meetings wrapped up on 12 August, the German Army was
broken and in full retreat. The Dominion ministers played their role from
the start. Borden responded to Lloyd George’s first briefing by delivering
a withering cross-examination of the British High Command:

We came over to fight in earnest; and Canada will fight it out to the
end. But earnestness must be expressed in organization, foresight,
preparation. Let the past bury its dead but for God’s sake let us get
down to earnest endeavour and hold this line until the Americans can
come in and help us to sustain it till the end.

Borden’s passion was bolstered by the detail of his critique and much of
that derived from long conversations with Currie, his own field comman-
der. Massey, speaking for the ‘most loyal Dominion’, chimed in support:
‘there is something wrong somewhere and we have got to find it’. This was
all music to Lloyd George’s ears, sweetened the following week when Billy
Hughes arrived – late again – and insisted ‘He wished to feel sure that the
290 B.P. Farrell
sacrifices that were being made were not wasted for want of proper leader-
ship and strategy’.84
Such criticisms produced a change in administration that as C.P. Stacey
argues ‘would have gone a good deal further than it did if the war had not
ended so soon’. Lloyd George played an important role, by rearranging
the machinery for war direction and calling in the Dominion govern-
ments. But Dominion criticism was sincere, not just the dance of puppets
on a string. And it was not just the unanimity of Dominion criticism that
mattered, it was the substance; hard experience in battle produced
Dominion commanders more willing and better able to provide informed
criticism of how the Empire’s war effort was being directed. The British
now had to work with their Dominion colleagues, as opposed to merely
keeping them informed, whether they liked what they were saying or not.
This was recognized by the man who as a result of Lloyd George’s innova-
tions emerged as the central figure in the administration of imperial
defence, a position he held for a generation: Colonel Maurice Hankey,
secretary to the war cabinet. Hankey proposed to refer Borden’s com-
plaints – and thus by implication the ultimate direction of the war – to ‘a
Committee of Prime Ministers only’. After Hughes arrived, the principals
agreed to do just that, establishing a committee with the vaguest of written
mandates to oversee the conduct of the war. While officially this new body
was merely a subcommittee of the British War Cabinet, very soon it
became a real day-to-day executive body, for two reasons: the pace of
events on the battlefield and the fact the British armies fighting there
could only be directed as an integrated formation by their assembled gov-
ernments.85
Nothing more clearly underlined this compulsion of circumstance than
the fact that the committee’s last formal paper in August dealt with what all
then expected to be the future course of the war in 1919. The British could
no longer revise grand strategy for an ongoing war without detailed discus-
sion in this new forum, bringing together their ‘junior but sovereign allies’
whose forces were so intimately associated with their own. Allied victories
that month made the report moot and, indeed, short-circuited the whole
arrangement of an executive Committee of Prime Ministers. But it would
be wrong to write it off merely as a reaction to the climax of the war.
Victory made it possible, and necessary, to face up to the great dilemmas of
imperial administration and defence exposed by the war – and they were
all raised that summer by the assembled company.
Hankey and Lloyd George served on both the Committee of Prime
Ministers and the British War Cabinet – but Hankey circulated all draft
copies of his reports to the latter body before the Dominion statesmen
received them. Hughes pressed for serious consideration of how to make
sure the different governments could remain ‘in direct touch with the
Prime Minister of the UK’ when the principals dispersed; he did not want
to have to ‘meander again through the indirect channels of the Colonial
 Coalition of the usually willing 291
Office’. But Arthur Balfour, now serving as British foreign secretary, noted
it would be difficult at best to share control of a single foreign policy, yet
only such a policy could make sure that ‘the united strength of the
Empire was to be put forward for any external purpose’. This sounded
very much like full circle, returning the problem to the status quo ante
bellum. To dispel any such notion, Borden made it clear the war effort
made by the Dominions must mean real change: ‘Unless [Canada] could
have that voice in the foreign relations of the Empire as a whole, she
would before long have an independent voice in her own foreign affairs
outside the Empire’. Borden was certainly not threatening to take Canada
out of the Empire; but he was stating what the war exposed as a simple
fact. After four years of fighting in a Great War at a level of violence and
commitment far beyond what anyone expected, the Dominions would no
longer provide support without full consultation.86 Comparing Borden’s
request for advice in August 1914 to his pressure for a full voice in imper-
ial defence and foreign policy in August 1918 allows one to measure how
much the test of total war influenced the evolution of imperial defence.
The problem that could be postponed or talked around before the war
now had to be faced: if the British wanted to lead a military coalition of
their Dominions in the future, they must find a way to share the all
important power of making policy decisions.
The abrupt end of the war in autumn 1918 probably made this more
rather than less complicated, but the problem was inherent. The crux of
the matter was that imperial defence remained a necessary but lopsided
partnership. The British needed Dominion help on a grand scale to win
the war; but that help came on top of a British war effort relatively, as
well as absolutely, even greater than their own.87 And whatever world
order emerged from Allied victory would be one in which their security
rested on strong British power and global interests. Even when they
mobilized beyond anyone’s expectations, the Dominions remained very
much the junior partner. The Dominions wanted to stand in their own
right beside the British, not venture out on their own. The UK in 1919
was unquestionably the strongest military power in the world; the
Empire actually expanded physically as a result of the destruction of the
Turkish empire in the Middle East and the German overseas empire. But
the British now faced some uncomfortable facts, even before the peace
conference in Paris produced its controversial settlement. New York
replaced London as the strongest financial centre in the world, and the
Americans were clearly the wealthiest and thus ultimately the strongest
power left standing. Europe was physically devastated and Eastern
Europe was politically in chaos. And British public opinion looked for
peace, quiet, and reform at home, rather than more colonies abroad.
When the peace settlement established a drastically new paradigm for
directing world affairs, expressed in the League of Nations and its
Covenant, it presented another challenge to managing the defence of an
292 B.P. Farrell
Empire with global interests that varied so widely in cultural, economic
and political circumstances.
The Dominions pressed successfully for seats at the peace conference
in their own right, signed the peace treaties of their own accord and
became founding member states of the League of Nations. This assertion
of status confused the rest of the world, but to the British ‘family’ seemed
like a logical progression from the developments of 1917–18. In fact, the
imperial relationship remained anything but logical, including arrange-
ments for defence. The Dominions dismantled their swollen military
forces as enthusiastically as the British, returned to a defence policy of
minimal commitment and thus remained physically dependent on British
power. This constrained the degree to which they could pursue a really
different defence and thus foreign policy. On the other hand, they all
insisted on being heard, by the British and or the world, when they
pressed their own ever more individual agendas, especially on foreign
policy. The wartime trend towards more formal centralization quickly col-
lapsed. It was replaced by a series of decisions, some thrashed out by argu-
ment in conference, others made in response to problems on the ground,
which set in stone changes made before the war and those brought about
by it. Functional integration of the different military forces became the
established practice in all three services, as the air force now lined up
alongside the older arms. It remained functional integration between a
large and widely dispersed British military machine and tiny Dominion
ones. Canada, under a new Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King,
emphasized Macdonald’s old desire to preserve room for Canada to make
its own decisions, rather than Borden’s wartime hope to make Canada a
full and active partner in making British ones. South Africa and Australia
took on regional colonial responsibilities of their own, but remained
fundamentally dependent on British power to exercise them. Rebellion in
Ireland forced Lloyd George to make most of the country a Dominion,
but the Irish went well beyond Mackenzie King to become the most reluct-
ant and aloof partner at the changing imperial table.
King, nevertheless, sent the most important signal of change. When the
British government decided in 1922 to resist a Turkish attempt to restore
full control over their own territory along the Aegean coast, they assumed
the Dominions would again rally to the call. In order to intimidate the
Turks, Winston Churchill, serving as colonial secretary, publicly stated that
Dominion forces would reinforce British defences around Chanak. It is
true that Churchill released this statement without first checking with the
Dominion governments. It is also true New Zealand and Australia replied
in the affirmative. But Mackenzie King publicly went out of his way to
reject this British appeal in deliberately angry terms, not just because it was
sprung on him so rudely. King returned to the same point Macdonald
made forty years earlier: this conflict did not threaten the very survival of
British power; therefore, it did not directly threaten any Canadian national
 Coalition of the usually willing 293
interest and, therefore, Canada would not intervene in any way. Canada
did not support the British appeal for help in Sudan forty years earlier, but
the key difference was the way Mackenzie King deliberately made a public
constitutional issue out of refusing. When the South Africans agreed with
him, this established the point once and for all. Depend as they did on
British power, in any dispute short of a mortal threat to that power each
Dominion would make its own decision regarding whether or not to offer
military support.88
Antipodean support in the Chanak crisis indicated their strategic depen-
dence on lines of communication running through the Mediterranean at
least as much as any political ‘loyalty’; such lines were no direct concern to
Canada, South Africa or Ireland. That same year the Dominions split on the
question of naval disarmament and relations with the Americans and Japan-
ese. Canada insisted the British not pursue any policy that would affront the
Americans; the Australians were more concerned about provoking the
Japanese. The strategic difference here was manifest. When the British
announced their policy to build a naval base in Singapore to protect the
Empire in the Far East, Canada was indifferent; the ‘British of the South’ wel-
comed the policy despite its many serious question marks.89 The British
themselves clarified the relationship between foreign and defence policy in
1923, when they decided they would rather not share control of a foreign
policy to which the Dominions seemed likely to contribute more complaints
than commitments. They decided to rely instead on Macdonald’s fundamen-
tal bonds – above all, on the fact the Dominions still depended on being
associated with a British-centred world order and wanted this to continue.90
In the end, the Great War made apparent what was already inherent. Mil-
itarily, the British and their Dominions certainly proved to be a coalition of
the usually willing – provided the stakes were high enough to threaten the
order on which they all ultimately depended. The central theme was not, as
many mistakenly believed, a conflict between imperial solidarity and
Dominion nationalism. The central theme was the effort to keep all inter-
ests in play, to balance the many competing forces. Canadian military com-
manders instinctively assumed their government would respond to the
British appeal over Chanak, made plans to send an expeditionary force and
were dismayed by their prime minister’s public rebuttal. The ensuing mis-
understanding summed up the larger confusion about arrangements for
imperial defence. King saw the military reaction as proof that functional
integration was dangerous, because many Canadians still saw themselves
more as an extension of Britain than as a junior but sovereign ally. His mili-
tary and political critics saw his position as separatism. Neither view was
entirely fair. King felt as Macdonald and Laurier felt in their day and
behaved accordingly: the British connection was central to Canada’s ulti-
mate national interest, but Canada also had its own particular interests,
imperatives and vulnerabilities, so Canada must decide for itself how to
work that connection. King saw more danger than duty in being entangled
294 B.P. Farrell
in world affairs, so he coined the formula that henceforth defined Canada’s
connection to imperial defence: as and when problems arose, Canada’s own
Parliament would decide how to respond. But there was no question, as
King told Hitler himself in 1938, about how Canada would respond to any
mortal threat to British power. It would not – did not – stand aside.91
The constitutional issues that engaged scholars for so long are best
understood when it comes to imperial defence as part and parcel of the
constant effort to define and promote national interests. When Dominion
autonomy and sovereignty was proclaimed in 1926 by the Balfour Declara-
tion, and codified in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster, only the Irish
wanted nothing to do with any association with British military power. Trade
within the Empire became more important for all parties after the Great
War, so important that one of the most significant responses to the Great
Depression was the Ottawa Conference decision in 1932 to establish formal
Imperial Preferences. It was much harder to understand and therefore to
accept any vaguely defined coalition of the usually willing as a reliable
military partnership, particularly when so much rhetoric concentrated on
status rather than solidarity. It would have been easier to grasp a more struc-
tured federation – but impossible to make it work. Such a structure would
have been too brittle to withstand the dynamic economic, demographic and
political forces that shaped the evolution of the UK and each Dominion.
Any Imperial Parliament or Committee of Prime Ministers after 1919 would
have been ruptured by the Chanak Crisis and the Singapore decision, let
alone the turmoil of the 1930s. The Dominions remained associated with
the British on their own individual terms, but associated they remained.
Dominion support was a major factor bolstering the British decision to
pursue a policy of appeasement in the second half of the 1930s – just as
Dominion support buttressed the British decision to go to war again in 1939
and fight on in 1940. There were limits, and they were not minor. Ireland
remained neutral, even if the Irish people did not. South Africa barely
entered the war and restricted its role throughout. But the audit of both
world wars produced the same bottom line: when it came to general war
between Great Powers, the economic, political and military strength the
Dominions produced was a greater net gain to British power than the rest
of the Empire combined.92
The coalition of the usually willing did not survive as the framework for
a viable system of imperial defence after the Second World War. Holland
is right to describe the military partnership after 1919 as a response to
weakening British power, even as a British attempt to draw on Dominion
power to compensate for the ebbing of their capability. But it did not
simply die at any one moment, or because of any one event – not even the
notorious Suez Crisis of 1956. British and Dominion forces fought
together again as formations in Korea and in the Far East into the 1960s.
This time, however, they did so more and more as partners in a larger
Western alliance led by the Americans – and less and less as functionally
 Coalition of the usually willing 295
integrated ‘sister armies’. Instead, the association faded into a loose circle
of familiars within a larger coalition of the usually willing, a coalition that
again was strongest when fundamental common interests were threat-
ened. The crucial fact was that imperial defence was driven by the
combination of attachment to, as well as dependence on, a British-
centred world order. When that world order gave way during and after
the Second World War, the partners responded accordingly – and, as
always, individually.93
The core dimension of ‘race patriotism’ that marked out the Domin-
ions from other British overseas territories was, of course, a major reason
why it proved impossible to transform those other territories, notably
India and Pakistan, into friendly Dominions working within a renewed
military partnership after the Second World War. Self-government came
far too late to be credible outside the settler colonies.94 Nor was it possible
to rely on any sense of attachment to keep the military partnership alive,
when concrete national interests adjusted to a changing world order.
Mansergh identified Mackenzie King as one of three central figures in the
evolution of what his magisterial study depicted as the transformation of
an Empire of power into a Commonwealth of associates. The relationship
between the British and the overseas Dominions was central to that
process, whatever one thinks of Mansergh’s argument. King’s often wilful
rejection of British efforts to foster imperial solidarity to buttress their
foreign policy is a target for the same critics who charge that Dominion
leaders sought security at British expense, demanding much but offering
little. This is not completely unfair. Canadian and Australian reluctance to
take more responsibility for their own defence in the dangerous 1930s was
a sign of immaturity, and both countries paid a heavy price for it in the
Second World War. But there is a more important point. Just as in 1914,
when a mortal threat to British power did erupt, the Dominions
responded. The coalition of the usually willing stood firm and fought to
the death. And once again Dominion contributions to a larger war effort
provided a vital increment of power, military, economic and psycho-
logical, that helped the UK prevail against a far more dangerous threat to
its civilization than the Empire saw off in the Great War.95
The coalition of the usually willing was a unique military partnership in
imperial history. No other imperial power in modern times made any
effort to nurture any kind of military partnership between governments in
a larger association. The balance sheet of that partnership can not be
restricted to how much British taxpayers spent on defence as opposed to
their Australian or South African counterparts.96 Nor can it be dismissed
as shallow because it faced real constraints on military cooperation, or
struggled to bridge real differences in individual capabilities and agendas,
or even because everyone in the end fought first and foremost for their
own national interests. It must instead take note of the fact that for nearly
a century different governments and public opinions saw the partnership
296 B.P. Farrell
as necessary and strove to keep it alive despite its many difficulties. The
real test was neither Sudan nor Chanak, but rather 1914 and 1940. The
coalition of the ultimate common interest did not falter and did not fail.
In the end it only disappeared.

Notes
1 Ireland, Newfoundland, Rhodesia, India and Pakistan were all formally con-
sidered Dominions at some point but constitute special cases. Newfoundland
and Rhodesia were too small as military powers to make any impact on discus-
sion of imperial defence; the other three are discussed below.
2 Three classic studies are D.C. Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial
Defense 1870–1914 (Baltimore, 1965); N. Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience
(London, 1969); R.A. Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense: A Study of the Origins
of the British Commonwealth’s Defense Organisation 1867–1919 (Durham, NC, 1967).
3 A question addressed by P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism
1688–2000 (London, 2002) and L.E. Davis and R.A. Huttenback, Mammon and
the Pursuit of Empire: The Political Economy of British Imperialism, 1860–1912 (Cam-
bridge, 1986). See also note 96.
4 B. Porter, Britain, Europe and the World 1850–1982: Delusions of Grandeur
(London, 1983), 79, 87; B. Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British
Imperialism 1850–2004 (London, 2004).
5 P. Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, in A. Porter (ed.), The Oxford
History of the British Empire: Vol. III: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1999), 324–5;
Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 41–6; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership
in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, xi.
6 G. St J. Barclay, The Empire Is Marching: A Study of the Military Effort of the British
Empire 1800–1945 (London, 1976), 8.
7 Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 325–7; Mansergh, The Common-
wealth Experience, 39; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense
1870–1914, 9.
8 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 48; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership
in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 7–8.
9 Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 327–8, saw Mills and the bulk of
his committee as adopting a ‘moderate’stance; Gordon, The Dominion Partner-
ship in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 12–13, considered them more critical of the
status quo; Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 8.
10 Davis and Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 146; Burroughs,
‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 328–9; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in
Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 22–3; Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 122;
Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 8.
11 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 53; Burroughs,
‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 332–3; B. Nicholls, ‘Colonial Naval Forces
before Federation’, in D. Stevens and J. Reeve (eds), Southern Trident: Strategy,
History and the Rise of Australian Naval Power (Sydney, 2001), 125–9.
12 Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 329–30; Davis and Huttenback,
Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 151–2.
13 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 33; Burroughs,
‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 331–2.
14 C.P. Stacey, Canada and the British Army 1846–1871: A Study in the Practice of
Responsible Government (Toronto, 1963), 259–60.
15 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688–2000, 234; Davis and Huttenback,
 Coalition of the usually willing 297
Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 152; Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Dis-
unity’, 330–1.
16 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 58; Cain and Hopkins, British Imperial-
ism 1688–2000, 230, 234; Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 330–1.
The Bible inspired the evocative term Dominion: Psalm 72, verse 8, ‘He shall
have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the
earth.’
17 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 35, 54–7, 64; D. Morton, Ministers and Gen-
erals: Politics and the Canadian Militia 1868–1904 (Toronto, 1970), 5–11.
18 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 123; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership
in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 31; Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 85.
19 J. Beeler, ‘Steam, Strategy and Shurman: Imperial Defence in the Post-Crimean
Era 1856–1905’, in G. Kennedy and K. Neilson (eds), Far Flung Lines: Essays on
Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman (London, 1996), 32;
Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 58–9, noted
another ‘wake up call’ for self-governing colonies in Colomb’s argument, which
listed strategic priorities: the UK, the sea lanes, then India, leaving other regions
to protect themselves ‘unless they were to be regarded as military positions
necessary to hold for the general welfare of the Empire’; Burroughs, ‘Defence
and Imperial Disunity’, 333–4.
20 Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 334–6; Barclay, The Empire Is
Marching, 10; Beeler, ‘Steam, Strategy and Shurman’, 35; Preston, Canada and
Imperial Defense, 93.
21 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 7, 122; Davis and Huttenback,
Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 42–3, 51; Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial
Disunity’, 335–36.
22 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 71, 98–100.
23 C. Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism
1867–1914 (Toronto, 1970), is the standard study of imperialism in Canada in
this period; Morton, Ministers and Generals, 48; Preston, Canada and Imperial
Defense, 131.
24 C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1 (Toronto, 1977), 32–3;
Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 139; Morton, Ministers and Generals, 51.
25 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 68–9, 129;
Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 154; S.J. Harris, Canadian Brass: The
Making of a Professional Army 1860–1939 (Toronto, 1988), 16–21.
26 R.C. Brown and M.E. Prang (eds), Confederation to 1949 (Scarborough, 1966),
62–3.
27 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 134–6; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in
Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 65; R. Sarty, ‘Canada and the Great Rapprochement
1902–1914’, in B. McKercher and L. Aronsen (eds), The North Atlantic Triangle in
a Changing World: Anglo-American-Canadian Relations 1902–1956 (Toronto, 1996),
14.
28 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 41–4; Preston, Canada and Imperial
Defense, 161–8; Morton, Ministers and Generals, 83.
29 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 95, 105; M.L. Hadley and R. Sarty, Tin Pots
and Pirate Ships: Canadian Naval Forces and German Sea Raiders 1880–1918 (Mon-
treal, 1991), 4–8.
30 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 7, 97, 109–11; Gordon, The Dominion
Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 78, Nicholls, ‘Colonial Naval Forces
before Federation’, 129–36.
31 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 91; Nicholls,
‘Colonial Naval Forces before Federation’, 136–7.
32 Burroughs, 337–8; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 45.
298 B.P. Farrell
33 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 96–7, 112;
Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 130–31; Burroughs, ‘Defence and
Imperial Disunity’, 338; R. Jackson, ‘New Zealand’s Naval Defence 1854–1914’,
in Stevens and Reeve (eds), Southern Trident, 122.
34 Davis and Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 157; P. Kennedy. The
Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 2004), ch. 7.
35 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 11, 21; Porter, Britain, Europe and the World, 61–2;
Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 16; Beeler, ‘Steam, Strategy and
Shurman’, 43; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914,
112.
36 Brown and Prang, Confederation to 1949, 65.
37 Beeler, ‘Steam, Strategy and Shurman’, 39; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in
Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 119.
38 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 120; Stacey,
Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 45–6.
39 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 2; Berger, The Sense of Power, 172; Morton, Min-
isters and Generals 95, 131–42; Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 207, 233;
Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial Disunity’, 342–3.
40 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 110, 119, saw some validity to Chamber-
lain’s strategic argument, but suggested vague British strategic arguments were
rebutted by clear colonial concerns about constitutionality; Gordon, The
Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 104, 117; Davis and Hutten-
back, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 157; Burroughs, ‘Defence and Imperial
Disunity’, 339–40.
41 I. R. Smith. The Origins of the South African War 1899–1902 (London, 1996); A.S.
Thompson, Imperial Britain: The Empire in British Politics 1880–1932 (London,
2000), 25; Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 264; Gordon, The Dominion
Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 144–5.
42 Barclay, Gordon, Preston and Stacey discuss this ‘traditional’ interpretation.
43 J. Crawford and I. McGibbon (eds), One Flag, One Queen, One Tongue: New
Zealand, the British Empire and the South African War (Auckland, 2003).
44 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 39–41; Morton, Ministers and Generals, 169;
Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 115; J. Grey, A Military History of Aus-
tralia (Cambridge, 1999), 52–61.
45 C. Miller, Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War (Montreal,
1993); Morton, Ministers and Generals, 151–2; Preston, Canada and Imperial
Defense, 255–62; Harris, Canadian Brass, 62–7.
46 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 276–82; Berger, The Sense of Power, 169;
Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 23.
47 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 283–7; Mansergh, The Commonwealth
Experience, 133–7; Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 43; Gordon, The Dominion
Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 164, 191–4; Davis and Huttenback,
Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 158; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate
Ships, 20.
48 Porter, Britain, Europe and the World, 63–5; R. Ross, A Concise History of South
Africa (Cambridge, 1999), 79–83; M. King, The Penguin History of New Zealand
(Auckland, 2003), 292–3.
49 D. Judd and P. Slinn, The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth 1902–1980
(London, 1982), 11, 21; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense
1870–1914, 194.
50 M. Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference (London, 1946), 83–5; R.B. Haldane, An
Autobiography (London, 1929), 183–99.
51 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 271; Preston,
Canada and Imperial Defense, Canada and Imperial Defense, 299–307; Mansergh,
 Coalition of the usually willing 299
The Commonwealth Experience, 144; Judd and Slinn, The Evolution of the Modern
Commonwealth, 22; Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference, 85–9; Stacey, Canada and the
Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 81.
52 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 357–71; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in
Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 272–3; Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 145.
53 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 181, 189;
Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 22–30, 41; Stacey, Canada and the
Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 81–4.
54 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 274–8; Morton,
Ministers and Generals, 195–200; Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 323, 335,
344–52, 378; Grey, A Military History of Australia, 76; Harris, Canadian Brass,
71–8.
55 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 202–3; J.
Pollock, Kitchener: Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace (New York, 2001), 344–5;
Grey, A Military History of Australia, 75–6.
56 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 47–50; Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in
Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 194, 216; N. Lambert, ‘Economy or Empire? The
Fleet Unit Concept and the Quest for Collective Security in the Pacific,
1909–1914’, in Kennedy and Neilson (eds), Far Flung Lines, 56; D. Stevens,
‘1901–1913: The Genesis of an Australian Navy’, in D. Stevens (ed.), The Royal
Australian Navy (Melbourne, 2001), 14–17; R. Lamont, ‘A.W. Jose in the Poli-
tics and Strategy of Naval Defence 1903–1909’, in Stevens and Reeve (eds),
Southern Trident, 200–11.
57 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 233–5; Thomp-
son, Imperial Britain, 118–23; Lambert, ‘Economy or Empire’? 56–7; Preston,
Canada and Imperial Defense, 390.
58 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 236; Thomp-
son, Imperial Britain, 120; Lambert, ‘Economy or Empire’? 59–60.
59 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, ch. 5; D. Morton, A Short History of
Canada (Toronto, 2001), 170–72; Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 389–91,
400, 427; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 22–9.
60 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 236–7; Lambert,
‘Economy or Empire’? 59, notes that the Admiralty review of naval strategy in
1909 was prompted in the first instance not by Dominion offers of assistance but
rather by complaints from the China Station about the weakness of the Hong
Kong defences; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 27–8, note that the
Admiralty gave Laurier justification to reject the plan by conceding there was no
serious threat to Canada in the Pacific and planning to use a Canadian Fleet
unit ‘far from home’.
61 Preston, Canada and Imperial Defense, 429–32, 447, summarized a very influ-
ential argument in the study of imperial defence. He concluded that decisions
made by 1911 reflected Canadian success in reorienting imperial defence on
arrangements that combined political autonomy and Canadian control of
Canadian defence policy and forces with voluntary commitment to broader
imperial defence concerns, smoothed by functional integration. This was a
‘high water mark’ of the evolution from ‘imperial’ towards ‘commonwealth’
defence, and it allowed the Empire to march united into the Great War. Stacey
agreed the combination was the key and leaving the Empire was not the
agenda, noting in Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 117–21, that the Cana-
dian decision to establish in 1909 a Department of External Affairs ‘appears
more important today than it did at the time’; Gordon, The Dominion Partner-
ship in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 241, 289.
62 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 213, 224; Davis and Huttenback,
Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 160–3, 189–91, 303–6.
300 B.P. Farrell
63 Davis and Huttenback, Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire, 161; Judd and Slinn,
The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth, 5.
64 Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defense 1870–1914, 281–93;
Lambert, ‘Economy or Empire’? 74–5.
65 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 153–68; Mansergh, The Common-
wealth Experience, 156; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 41; Preston,
Canada and Imperial Defense, 447.
66 Steven, The Royal Australian Navy, 24–7; Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 55–7,
Judd and Slinn, The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth, 15; Thompson, Imper-
ial Britain, 118, 122.
67 Harris, Canadian Brass, ch. 5, makes important points about the progress and
pitfalls of functional integration in Canada under Sam Hughes as minister of
militia; Haldane, An Autobiography, 225–40; Mansergh, The Commonwealth
Experience, 165; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, 37–8; Preston,
Canada and Imperial Defense, 452–61.
68 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 21; Judd and Slinn, The Evolution of the
Modern Commonwealth, 39–40; J. Darwin, ‘A Third British Empire? The Domin-
ion Idea in Imperial Politics’, in J.M. Brown and W.R. Louis (eds), The Oxford
History of the British Empire: Vol. IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford, 1999), 66–7;
Porter, Britain, Europe and the World, 79, and The Lion’s Share, 228.
69 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 21; R. Holland, ‘The British Empire
and the Great War’, in Brown and Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British
Empire, 118; Porter, Britain, Europe and the World, 70; M. Beloff, Imperial Sunset,
Vol. 1: Britain’s Liberal Empire 1897–1921 (Basingstoke, 1987, 1969), 178–82; J.
Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union (Toronto, 1975).
70 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 173–6; R.C. Brown, Robert Laird
Borden: A Biography (Toronto, 1975), 8–9.
71 Brown, Robert Laird Borden, 22.
72 Brown, Robert Laird Borden, 5; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1,
177–79; Harris, Canadian Brass, ch. 6.
73 R. Jenkins, Asquith (London, 1986 [1964]), ch. xxii; Grey, A Military History of
Australia, 88–95; King, The Penguin History of New Zealand, 296–300. Robin
Prior’s essay ‘Gallipoli’, in J. Beaumont (ed.), Australian Defence: Sources and
Statistics, Australian Centenary History of Defence Vol. VI (Melbourne, 2001),
264–70, typifies the great value of this volume for research on all aspects of the
Australian role in imperial defence. Such volumes are sorely needed for the
other national experiences.
74 Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience 171–2; Brown, Robert Laird Borden, 27–34;
Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 183–94. Borden’s anger was all the
more poignant given Law’s own background, born and raised in New Brunswick.
75 Harris, Canadian Brass, ch. 6; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1,
194–6.
76 Holland, ‘The British Empire and the Great War’, 127–8; Brown, Robert Laird
Borden, 58–63; Grey, A Military History of Australia, 108–11; Harris, Canadian
Brass, 118–21.
77 Jenkins, Asquith, chs xxv–xxvii; Brown, Robert Laird Borden, 70, 75; Grey, A Mili-
tary History of Australia, 109–10; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1,
203–6; Hankey, Diplomacy by Conference, 55–58.
78 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 203–11; Brown, Robert Laird Borden,
85; I.M. Cumpston, The Evolution of the Commonwealth of Nations 1900–1980
(Canberra, 1997), 4–5.
79 Cumpston, The Evolution of the Commonwealth, 4–5; Brown, Robert Laird Borden,
81; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 213–16; Mansergh, The Com-
monwealth Experience, 26; Hadley and Sarty, Tin Pots and Pirate Ships, part 3.
 Coalition of the usually willing 301
80 Judd and Slinn, The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth, 38–40; Holland, ‘The
British Empire and the Great War’, 127–30; Kendle, The Round Table Movement
and Imperial Union, 218–22.
81 Grey, A Military History of Australia, 109–12; Brown, Robert Laird Borden, 91–112;
Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 217–18.
82 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 74–5; Grey, A Military History of Australia, 101–5;
Harris, Canadian Brass, ch. 7.
83 Grey, A Military History of Australia, 105–8; Holland, ‘The British Empire and
the Great War’, 132–5.
84 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 219–21; Brown, Robert Laird Borden,
135–6; Holland, ‘The British Empire and the Great War’, 125.
85 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 221–3; Brown, Robert Laird Borden,
140–2.
86 G. Kennedy, ‘Strategy and Supply in the North Atlantic Triangle 1914–1918’,
in McKercher and Aronsen (eds), The North Atlantic Triangle in a Changing
World, 76, note 92; G. Johnson and D. Lenarcic, ‘The Decade of Transition:
The North Atlantic Triangle During the 1920s’, in McKercher and Aronsen
(eds), The North Atlantic Triangle in a Changing World, 93; Stacey, Canada and the
Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 223–7; Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial
Union, 302.
87 Kennedy, ‘Strategy and Supply’, 73, note 66, points out that Canada enlisted
9.6 per cent of its male population for military service, Australia 10.7 per cent,
New Zealand 11.9 per cent, South Africa 1.7 per cent; the UK figure was over
22 per cent. Statistics for economic mobilization suggest a similar comparison.
Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 1, 235–6; Grey, A Military History of
Australia, 115–17.
88 C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2 (Toronto, 1981), 17–31; Harris,
Canadian Brass, 176; K. Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire
1918–1922 (Manchester, 1984), makes some interesting points about British
plans for military cooperation aborted by changing Dominion attitudes.
89 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2, chs 1–2; Johnson and Lenarcic,
‘The Decade of Transition’, 94; Grey, A Military History of Australia, 122–3;
Barclay, 90–8, raised an interesting point about the running friction regarding
defence in the Far East. When Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce visited
Canada in 1927 he provoked a public row with Mackenzie King by accusing
Canada of freeloading in defence. King scolded his counterpart and emphas-
ized Canada’s duty to pursue its own interests. It is hard not to sympathize with
Barclay’s contention that when defence commitments were left solely to the
Dominions to determine, then imperial defence in circumstances other than
the threat of general war came close to being ‘simply every man for himself’.
But the crucial caveat is ‘other than’.
90 R.F. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance 1918–1939 (London, 1981),
13–23; Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2, is subtitled ‘The Mackenzie
King Era’.
91 Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2, ch. 6; Harris, Canadian Brass,
180–1, notes that by the 1930s the Canadian General Staff felt Canada should
not participate in conflicts involving internal unrest within the Empire or an
attack by a minor power on imperial interests and spent most of their time
refining Defence Scheme 3, the plan to dispatch a seven-division expeditionary
force overseas in another general war. Functional integration meant among
other things that the only major power the Dominion military forces could
work with effectively was the UK, which always bothered Mackenzie King.
92 Barclay, The Empire Is Marching, 81, 218; Darwin, ‘A Third British Empire’?
84–5; A. Clayton, ‘Deceptive Might’: Imperial Defence and Security
302 B.P. Farrell
1900–1968’, in Brown and Louis (eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire,
294–304; Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 638–9; Holland, Britain and the
Commonwealth Alliance, 167–204. R. Ovendale, Appeasement and the English-
Speaking World: Britain, the US, the Dominions, and the Policy of Appeasement
1937–1939 (Cardiff, 1975), is the standard work.
93 Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, 1, 24, 37; D. Mackenzie,
‘Canada, The North Atlantic Triangle and the Empire’, in Brown and Louis
(eds), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 592–5; R. Ovendale, The English-
Speaking Alliance: Britain, the US, the Dominions and the Cold War 1945–1951
(London, 1985); A. Orde, The Eclipse of Great Britain: The US and British Imperial
Decline 1895–1956 (London, 1996), ch. 6; Grey, A Military History of Australia,
chs 9–10; Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 410.
94 Ovendale, The English-Speaking Alliance, 53–119, 251, argued that at the prime
minister’s conference in 1948 the British provided ‘comprehensive details of
the new British defence policy’ to all participants, including India and Pak-
istan, but also noted the conference rejected any idea of a concerted Common-
wealth defence policy. At least one reason was the fact that ‘A distinction
developed between the old “white” Dominions and the new Asian members’.
The distinction went both ways. India was no more keen to commit to a British-
led defence policy than the British were to divulge strategic plans to India. An
interesting recent discussion is L.J. Butler, Britain and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-
Imperial World (London, 2002), chs 2–3. Mansergh, The Commonwealth
Experience, 394; Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance, 33.
95 K. Jeffery, ‘The Second World War’, in Brown and Louis (eds), The Oxford
History of the British Empire; Mansergh, The Commonwealth Experience, 284–9; A.
Clayton, The British Empire as a Superpower 1919–1939 (Athens, GA, 1986), 517.
96 Margaret Thatcher joined this argument in her memoirs The Downing Street
Years, London, 1993. Among the many causes of the decline of British power
after the Second World War that she listed on page 5 she included ‘the decep-
tive might of an empire which continued to expand until 1919 but which cost
more to defend than it contributed to national wealth’.
14 Imperial defence in the
post-imperial era
Ashley Jackson

In the decades following the Second World War, imperial defence con-
tinued to be a key element in Britain’s strategic posture, though commit-
ments in this direction slowly contracted, and the word ‘imperial’ was
dropped as the British Empire disappeared and Britain’s relative power
declined. Despite this, Britain’s appetite for a global military stance and
the defence of overseas territories and interests – main features of imper-
ial defence – never ended. In this light, the Strategic Defence Review of 1998
was not a departure in British defence policy so much as a refocusing on
wider world commitments in an age where, not for the first time, Britain’s
investment in European security could be scaled down.1
Before that, from the 1960s to the 1990s, despite insistent calls in other
strategic directions from NATO and the European Economic Community
– and the urgent pleas of the British economy for strategic austerity –
Britain never lost the ardent desire to remain a world policeman, even if
its historic role of chief constable had been usurped by the Anglo-Saxon
power on the other side of the Atlantic. Even when scaling down its terri-
torial possessions or defence establishment, as will be seen, the British
time and again evinced a desire to stay on, to never withdraw completely
and to retain a strategic culture associated with a global presence and
global intervention. The former American Secretary of State, Dean
Acheson, once said – to be paraphrased by many thereafter – that ‘Great
Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role’. On the contrary,
in substance as well as in policy, Britain never in fact entirely lost that
empire, and certainly never lost the appetite and capacity to perform a
world role, despite the turn towards Europe that Acheson approvingly dis-
cerned, and the relative contraction of British economic, political, and
military power in the post-war decades.
This chapter will consider a number of related issues. First, the fact that
the British Empire never entirely disappeared, and that even today Britain
has, as one of its core defence missions, the defence of overseas colonies
and interests, and retains overseas military bases; second, the fact that even
when colonies were lost, the British remained reluctant to abandon mili-
tary commitments in the surrounding region, and that often the transfer of
304 A. Jackson
power to an independent government was the cause of a new defence
attachment between the fledgling nation and the erstwhile colonial power;
third, the chapter will consider what might be termed the ‘non-withdrawal’
from East of Suez commitments, as well as those in the west of Suez region;
and the chapter will conclude with a consideration of the Strategic Defence
Review era and the semantics of ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’ in an appar-
ently post-imperial era.
A great deal of historical attention has been devoted to the themes of
Britain’s decline from world power status in the decades following the
Suez crisis. It is a commonplace that the British Empire finally foundered
in the 1960s, to be washed away by the irresistible tide of nationalism and
the force of economic, strategic and political shifts unleashed by the
Second World War and the onset of the Cold War. Thereafter, beset by
economic problems, domestic social problems and the logic of closer
integration with Europe, Britain’s attachment to the Commonwealth
became less important, and, in the 1970s, Britain finally jettisoned its
extra-European defence responsibilities as it bade farewell to East of Suez
commitments, to focus its energies almost exclusively on the defence of
Europe through NATO. As Ritchie Ovendale writes, after the announce-
ment of the decision to withdraw from East of Suez in 1967, ‘the emphasis
went right over to the continental commitment’.2 Finally, it seemed,
Britain had reconciled itself to being a second-class military power linked
more naturally to Europe than a global empire and Commonwealth. The
fundamental defence policy realignment that accompanied these painful
lessons in the realities of world power status was pursued to such an extent
that Britain was barely able to perform ‘out of area’ operations, and the
Falklands conflict proved to be a desperately close run thing because of
this. Thus, it would appear, Britain went from empire, far flung lines and
global interventionism to a defensive line much closer to home, because
of the strategic imperatives of Cold War national survival, the end of the
imperial adventure and the Treasury’s bare coffers.
Of course, in many ways this is a sustainable rendition of British history
since the 1960s. Yet it is a misleading one, for there were never such
sharply defined breaks in British practice, irrespective of policy state-
ments. If one focuses less on policy statements and more on the reality of
British force structures and deployments, the disjuncture between what
was said and what was done becomes clear. Britain never turned its back on
the world role, either as a political and economic actor or as a power pos-
sessing a global military reach, even when NATO and the defence of
Europe took centre stage. Furthermore, Britain never fully withdrew from
its East of Suez commitments, despite the decision to close down the Sin-
gapore stronghold and end the practice of stationing tens of thousands of
armed services personnel in the Indian Ocean region. This continuation
of the world role into the 1970s and beyond was the result of political
decisions based upon a rational assessment of Britain’s national interests.
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 305
An important feature in this stubborn refusal to abandon the world role
was the mindset of the armed forces, which continued to believe that
global deployability was a part of their mission, even if the defence of
Europe had taken centre stage. The British Army, for example, never
happily gave up on ‘small wars’ in distant places, and the Royal Navy
remained determined to preserve its organic airpower capabilities despite
the government’s apparent belief that the era of British expeditionary
operations had been consigned to history.3 Many senior politicians,
despite the logic of putting Britain’s strategic eggs in NATO’s European
basket, were susceptible to the lure of Britain’s past, particularly the siren
call of its maritime heritage. A belief in Britain as a ‘world power’, with a
unique maritime calling, was shared, among others, by Harold Wilson,
prime minister when the East of Suez withdrawal was announced.4
The focus on post-imperial decline and contraction has concealed an
obvious continuum of extra-European British defence interests, facilities
and deployments running from the 1960s to the present day. Similarly,
the focus upon the end of empire has blinded many to the numerous
imperial legacies – not to say imperial commitments – that survived the
1960s. Though the major territories that had formed the British Empire –
located in Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia – had gained independ-
ence by the late 1960s, Britain’s empire in fact remained sizeable, and cer-
tainly global, well into the 1990s. The remaining islands and enclaves of
empire still represented a significant global footprint, and many did not
gain their independence until the years after Africa, South Asia, and
South-East Asia had witnessed the end of British rule. Between 1968 and
1971, for example, independence came to Aden, Mauritius, Swaziland,
Nauru, Tonga, Fiji, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Between 1973 and 1984, independence was granted to the Bahamas,
Grenada, the Seychelles, Dominica, the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and
Ellice Islands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, the New Hebrides,
Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, and Brunei. Hong Kong
remained a British possession, and military base, until 1997.5
Part of the British Empire still exists today, and the fact that the
defence of these colonies remains a primary British military commitment
has helped preserve the global posture of Britain’s armed forces. The
remaining British colonies, known today as Overseas Territories, are
Anguilla, Ascension Island, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British
Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands,
the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie,
and Oeno Islands, St Helena, South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands, Tristan da Cunha, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Some of
these territories have a military use for Britain and its allies, or require gar-
rison forces, such as Ascension Island, British Indian Ocean Territory, the
Falklands and Gibraltar. Britain also has two Sovereign Base Areas in
Cyprus, which support permanent British military establishments.6 The
306 A. Jackson
retention of some of Britain’s imperial base infrastructure represents
another important continuum with the era of classic imperial defence,
and Britain also enjoys base rights and military facilities in numerous
independent countries, such as Belize, Brunei, Canada, Kenya, Oman and
Singapore, as well as supplies defence and security expertise to scores of
countries around the world and is a signatory to numerous defence
alliances. Today, British forces are committed in Africa, the Caribbean,
Central Asia, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as well as in Euro-
pean locations such as the Balkans, several former Soviet states, Germany
and Northern Ireland. According to the Chief of the Defence Staff,
General Sir Michael Walker, in addition to British warships, air squadrons
and regiments serving in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Brunei, Cyprus, the
Falklands, Gibraltar, Iraq and Sierra Leone in 2005, Britain had small
detachments of service personnel in seventy-four different countries and
eighty-four defence attaché sections around the world.7 The fact of
Britain’s continuing commitment to a global military presence and global
military deployments – irrespective of the Cold War and the downsizing of
the armed forces – should come as no surprise, for the defence of British
overseas interests and overseas territories has always been a priority for
British foreign and defence policy. Furthermore, despite relative decline
and imperial contraction, its financial, commercial, diplomatic and cul-
tural links with the wider world remained substantial.

Imperial defence from the dawning of the Cold War to the

decolonization decade
Having argued that there was more continuity from the days of the empire
and imperial defence than is usually assumed, it is useful to examine how
Britain came to retain such commitments even whilst its power and pres-
ence in the world was shrinking. Between the end of the Second World
War and the Suez crisis of 1956, imperial defence changed surprisingly
little, conceptually at least. Despite the seismic shifts in the balance of
global power wrought by the Second World War and the onset of the
nuclear age, Britain’s defence vision remained recognizably imperial, with
familiar pre-war – not to say nineteenth century – themes to the fore. Thus,
for example, the strategic appreciation presented by the COS to the British
government in May 1947 read very much like a nineteenth-century imper-
ial defence study, in terms of its emphasis on retaining forces in the Middle
East and other key regions, and the continued use of the Royal Navy to
police the world’s major sea routes.8 The Russian threat (and Russia had of
course been public enemy number one for much of the nineteenth
century) was taken in the report’s stride, a simple bolt-on to the enduring
precepts of imperial defence. Having had the ‘Eastern Question’ as a key
pillar in Britain’s strategy of Russian containment throughout the nine-
teenth century, it was not too much of an exercise in strategic diversion to
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 307
embroider a standard rendition of imperial defence with new threads asso-
ciated with the atomic environment and the emerging Cold War. Imperial
bases in the Middle East, as they had done before, could house the forces
required to strike should there be a war with Russia (strategic bombers
becoming more important than large concentrations of troops). Part one
of the report dealt with ‘Commonwealth Defence Policy’, contending, in
fine tradition, that ‘the security of the UK is the keystone of Common-
wealth defence’.
Another striking feature of the COS’s strategic appreciation of 1947 was
that, even with the independence of India and Pakistan and the loss of the
Indian Army in the same year, Britain’s strategic vision continued to
encompass the need to contribute to the defence of those two countries.
Russian ‘eastward expansion’, for example, ‘would threaten the security of
India, our control of sea communications in the Indian Ocean and our
resources of oil, tin, and rubber’. This demonstrated the way in which, in
British eyes at least, the empire to Commonwealth transition was not sup-
posed to see an end to Britain’s leadership, or its responsibility for the
security of newly independent states (in the event of war with Russia, the
report stated, ‘an offensive base in North-West India’ would be required).
It was hoped that, irrespective of independence, such states would choose
to remain within the orbit of British power. A similar intent was to be
observed in the Pacific. There, despite the fact that America had clearly
become the defensive guarantor of British territories and dominions when
Pax Britannica’s naval shield failed in December 1941, Britain still con-
ceived the need to deploy forces in order to contribute to the security of
Australia, New Zealand, and the many imperial territories in the Pacific.9
All of this showed how robust the legacy of Britain’s traditional formula-
tion of imperial defence policy was, and how strong its determination to
remain a world power was (and, it should not be forgotten how great the
demand was from other countries for a sustained British contribution to
their security). Of course, some saw this as a strategically blinkered
approach, as Britain missed a golden opportunity in the post-war world to
scale back its commitments and tether defence policy more firmly to
national security.
There were constant and powerful pressures for a scaling down of
Britain’s ambitious extra-European security commitments. The develop-
ment of NATO, and its preoccupation with the defence of the western
European heartland, was to lead to a long-term tension with this older
strategic stance, habit and instinct of the British, though it was never to
completely win out over it.10 Acting as an unwelcome rudder to defence
policy in the post-war decades, the plight of the British economy was never
far from the Whitehall mind; in 1945, the British government had
expected the country to remain at the centre of a global empire and Com-
monwealth, which would recover its strength and form the third arc of
power in the world behind the spheres of America and Russia. The
308 A. Jackson
economy was never to recover sufficiently, however, to drive this world
vision, though successive British governments showed themselves unwill-
ing to heed its steer in the direction of strategic economy.
The question ‘Did the Suez crisis of 1956 herald the end of empire?’
has been a popular undergraduate essay title for years. Brian Lapping,
who produced a seminal Granada television series called End of Empire in
the mid-1980s, believed that, whatever twitches emanated from the dying
empire thereafter, Suez had indeed been its death knell, and, more
particularly, that of the actions associated with British imperialism. ‘The
Suez operation wrote finis not only to the British empire but to all the
empires of western Europe’.11 Others were not so sure.12 They pointed out
that Suez was not as big a deal as assumed; on the one hand, Britain was
recalibrating and downsizing its Middle Eastern commitments before 1956
anyway; on the other hand, the debacle did not lead to a British retreat,
from that region or any of the others in which Britain was engaged. Not
only did Britain’s territorial hold in the Mediterranean remain firm and
British strategic weapons remain based in the region (including nuclear
bombers), but also Britain was back two years later on another interven-
tionist military mission, this time in Jordan. Moreover, the decade follow-
ing the Suez crisis was something of a heyday for imperial intervention,
particularly that of an expeditionary nature, in the East of the Suez
region. The British Empire as a territorial entity did not suddenly implode
after Suez, irrespective of damage to reputation and relations with
America as well as the Commonwealth, and British policy-makers and mili-
tary strategists did little to revise their conception of the world and
Britain’s place in it – the third power behind America and Russia, the
senior partner in the Commonwealth club, the arbiter of the destiny of
scores of colonies and their peoples.
Another factor keeping Britain strategically engaged with the wider
world was its role in the Cold War, which included membership of regional
security alliances, particularly the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)
and the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), both designed to
compliment NATO in barring the spread of communism (and both requir-
ing the commitment of British military resources).13 Britain’s involvement
in these Cold War creations stemmed directly from her imperial presence
in the regions concerned. Britain’s participation in SEATO was driven by a
traditional desire to help protect and reassure parts of the empire and Com-
monwealth that felt exposed by increasing regional tensions and the spread
of communism (in particular, Australia and New Zealand). Even in the late
1960s, the British government believed that it had a responsibility to con-
tribute to the defence of Australia and New Zealand, to afford a nuclear
guarantee to allied states and to contribute to security in the South
Asia–South-East Asia region, particularly in order to counter the spread of
communism. A feature of this defence commitment was the desire to offer
India an alternative to ally with either of the superpowers or to develop its
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 309
own nuclear capability. Britain’s imperial defence commitments and
mindset had, to a significant extent, survived the end of empire by respawn-
ing as Cold War defence imperatives. These commitments, though scaled
down, survived beyond the ‘end of empire’ decade, SEATO lasting until
1977, CENTO staggering on until 1979.
Despite the continued attachment to extra-European security commit-
ments, there took place a conscious, Whitehall-directed imperial retreat in
the late 1950s, though even here, talk of an end of empire or abandon-
ment of imperial defence is premature. Framed against the backdrop of
Suez, sluggish economic recovery and the 1957 Sandys Defence Review
(nuclear costs going up, conventional forces therefore coming down),
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan asked his Cabinet colleagues for an
‘audit of empire’: what have we got, why do we have it, what does it do for
us?14 The impossible was thought; even a ‘fortress colony’ such as Cyprus,
it was concluded, could proceed along the path to independence. With
Malaysia, the remaining jewel in the imperial crown, recently independ-
ent, and Ghana pointing the way towards African independence, in 1959
Macmillan appointed a colonial secretary (Iain Macleod) who believed in
faster decolonization in the remaining imperial regions. In the following
year, Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech was beamed across the globe as
‘the year of Africa’ began the rush to independence that was to see Britain
out of Africa by 1968.15
Nevertheless, even this resolve to prune imperial commitments severely
was largely a result of an assessment of how best to preserve British influ-
ence in the world, how to secure Britain’s continued leadership of a
global Commonwealth that, whilst not quite imperial red on the map,
would remain cheerfully pink.16 In particular, it did not denote a lessening
of commitment to the vast Indian Ocean region; in fact, it was quite the
reverse. The 1962 Defence Review confirmed that Britain would tighten
its grip in this region, the last great imperial redoubt. Moreover, in terms
of imperial defence, the British government saw no reason why a post-impe-
rial state could not still form part of British plans to project power. Ceylon
provided a good example of this; becoming independent in 1948, the new
government was willing to remain a Commonwealth member, whilst grant-
ing the Royal Navy the continued use of Trincomalee, from which the
navy’s East Indies Station continued to police the Indian Ocean from the
Malacca Straits to the Swahili coast and from the Southern Ocean to the
Persian Gulf. Imperial defence also lived on in Britain’s stubborn refusal
to abandon a commitment to a region even as Britain’s military forces and
overseas bases contracted. This can be illustrated by extending the
example given above. The navy’s East Indies Station was closed in 1958,
and Britain departed Ceylon for the first time since the days of Nelson.
The station’s disbandment, however, did not signal the end of Britain’s
naval commitment to the region.17 Responsibility for the area formerly
covered by the East Indies Station was divided between the Far East
310 A. Jackson
Command, the Atlantic and South America Command, and the newly
formed Arabian Seas and Persian Gulf Station. This example reveals two
enduring British defence themes: on the one hand, the desire never to
abandon a commitment, even when that commitment was being scaled
down; on the other hand, the habit of stretching resources (some would
say overstretching) to continue to meet those commitments.
Britain intended, and never ceased attempting, to perform the military
and political roles commonly associated with the term ‘world power’. Even
though Britain lost the remaining large territories of its empire in the
1960s, it still had a global role, both in terms of the government’s concep-
tion of Britain’s place in the world, and in terms of the hard power of mili-
tary reach and infrastructure. In 1967, for example, with decolonization
apparently complete, Britain still had 61,000 military personnel East of
Suez. The Far East Fleet, based in Singapore, had between seventy and
eighty vessels of all classes, and the Far East Air Force deployed numerous
squadrons, including fast jet combat aircraft and strategic bombers.18 Even
though the empire was retracting, it had never been umbilically linked to
the projection of British power, and Britain’s resolve and capacity in this
direction continued long into the post-imperial age. This was especially
true given the importance of Britain’s new post-war role as Cold War
junior partner. Standing alongside the US in defence of the West and its
interests in the wider world, and with a global military presence featuring
strategic nuclear weapons and globally deployed conventional forces, even
when shorn of formal colonial holdings, Britain remained a unique world
power. The intention and capacity to be a global military power even in an
age of imperial contraction, was well summed up in the title of a book
contributing to the contemporary strategic and defence debate of the
1960s, called Arms Without Empire.19 Britain would remain capable of
deploying forces globally in defence of its interests, including the defence
of Commonwealth states and remaining colonies, and in fulfilment of its
Cold War commitments.
The loss of the ‘imperial defence’ perspective on British security policy
has obscured the fact that there was a great deal of continuity in Britain’s
relations with the wider world; as already suggested, it might be said that
the imperial strand of British defence policy never ended and remains to
this day. Even with the empire disappearing, Britain’s armed forces
retained a global posture, even if they became much smaller. The loss of
colonies did not alter the mission of the British armed forces to project
power globally as well as to defend Britain through NATO, and with
technological developments, the need for colonial bases in order to do
this was greatly reduced. In the 1960s, both the Navy and the RAF champi-
oned their competing visions of how to project power around the world,
much as in the past. A new emphasis upon strategic mobility brought the
promise of military projection without the need for imperial garrisons or
bases on anything like the old scale. The RAF’s island staging plan, for
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 311
example, was founded upon the use of a small handful of strategic colo-
nial bases and strategic lift aircraft and fighters such as the American F-
111 and the British TSR2. The navy’s vision, similarly allowing
intervention and troop deployment worldwide, was based upon aircraft
carriers, commando carriers and the Royal Marines. The struggle between
the RAF and the Navy for a greater share of the defence budget in order
to fund their competing visions for global power projection ended when
the Treasury rode roughshod over both their dreams. Plans for the two
new aircraft carriers (CVA-01), approved by Cabinet in 1962, were
scrapped; TSR2 was cancelled, as was the order for F-111s. Nevertheless,
true to Britain’s reluctance to abandon the imperial role, the 1966
Defence Review did nothing to change Britain’s defence commitment to
the East of Suez region.20

The non-withdrawal from East of Suez and the wider world:

imperial defence after the 1960s
The 1967 announcement by Harold Wilson’s government that Britain
would withdraw from the East of Suez region by the mid-1970s is rightly
seen as a milestone.21 Britain was withdrawing its forces and shutting its
two remaining ‘big’ imperial bases and would cease to be the major exter-
nal power in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf regions that it had
dominated for nearly a century and a half. The announcement also sig-
nalled a significant Cold War repositioning, for America would now have
to fill the void in order to protect this vital region from Russian penetra-
tion. It is usually assumed that the Labour government’s decision to with-
draw forces from East of Suez ended Britain’s historic military role in the
region, and many imperial historians see the 1967 announcement, rather
than the Suez crisis of 1956, as a more fitting peg to hang Britain’s ‘end of
empire’ hat. Despite the apparent finality of the decision to withdraw
from East of Suez, however, there was to be no firm handshake and swift
departure – more of a long, lingering goodbye that is yet to end. The
‘withdrawal’ was tempered by the creation of a new standing naval force
based in Singapore, and the institution of a defence agreement focused
on South-East Asia. Britain adopted the practice of sending a naval task
group to the East of Suez region at regular intervals, a makeweight in the
light of the unpopular decision to withdraw. Instability in the Gulf – some
of it caused by Britain’s decision to leave – led to the establishment of a
permanent naval presence there, less than a decade after the withdrawal
was supposed to have been affected.
Why was the withdrawal from East of Suez not completed? As has been
contended, partial withdrawal was a symptom of Britain’s reluctance to
sever connections with the wider world. Another reason was purely to do
with events; instability, particularly in the Persian Gulf, meant that Britain
continued to be engaged in the region, because it remained an area of
312 A. Jackson
key economic importance to Britain and its allies. Finally, it is clear that
the British government never intended the East of Suez withdrawal
announcement to mean that Britain abandoned its interests in the region.
When announcing the withdrawal, the British government sought to reas-
sure concerned politicians, at home and in places such as Australia and
Singapore, by pledging the retention of a ‘special reserve’ for deployment
in the region in the event of trouble, and though this was linguistically
demoted to a ‘general reserve’ in 1974, the point was that a commitment
remained, in the subtext rather than the banner headlines, but real
nonetheless.22 It is clear that the choices involved in the East of Suez with-
drawal were never as black and white as they have often been viewed;
though the retreat was beat, the march was slow. Contributing to the stra-
tegic debate of the late 1960s, Neville Brown wrote that those advocating a
complete withdrawal from East of Suez were largely ignorant of the ‘gra-
dations that can exist in both presence and commitment’.23 The con-
tinuation of both a ‘presence’ and a ‘commitment’ even after 1967 can be
ascribed to the fact that the strategic culture of the British government,
and its definition of the national interest, ensured that a stubborn eye was
kept on the wider world and the need to send military forces into it.
The ways in which Britain failed to withdraw from East of Suez will now
be examined. First of all, it took a number of years to affect the drawdown
of forces envisaged by the government announcements of 1967 and 1968,
and numerous axed British bases remained functioning until the mid- to
late 1970s. Second, a connection rarely made is the fact that the creation
and development of British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was not just
part of Britain’s facilitation of America’s assumption of responsibility for
the Indian Ocean, but was conceived as a way of keeping Britain in the
region if its main bases were closed. Third, even with the termination in
1971 of the central institution of Britain’s presence in Malaysia and Singa-
pore – Far East Command – strong and tangible links remained. Fourth,
Britain formed Australia–New Zealand–UK (ANZUK) Force, which was
stationed at Singapore between 1971 and 1974 and concluded the Five
Power Defence Arrangements intended to contribute to South-East Asia’s
security. Fifth, in 1973 Britain began the practice of regularly sending
naval task groups to the region, in lieu of its former permanent naval
commitment, and in 1979 formed a standing naval patrol in the Gulf.24
Finally, exercising military influence in more discrete ways, British officers
remained responsible for leading and training forces in countries such as
Brunei, Mauritius and Oman, and training exercises for British forces
were regularly held in places such as Kenya, Malaysia and Oman.
In fulfilment of the government’s decision to be ‘all out’ by 1971, the
Far East Fleet sailed past its last commander in October of that year. The
fleet comprised the destroyer HMS Glamorgan, five frigates, the heavy
repair ship HMS Triumph and six Royal Fleet Auxiliaries (RFA). Aircraft
from HMS Albion and Eagle joined in the ceremony. At the same moment
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 313
that the Far East Fleet ceased to exist, the Far East Air Force also passed
into history. This was, however, not the end of Britain’s standing force
commitment to the region. A ‘transitional’ arrangement meant that as
soon as Far East Command was terminated, ANZUK Force came into exist-
ence. This was a standing force of frigates based in Singapore, com-
manded in the first instance by an Australian.25 ANZUK Force remained at
Singapore for three years after the ‘withdrawal’. Even with its demise in
1974, Britain still maintained a military commitment to the region.
Exhibiting reluctance to completely abandon global commitments, in the
year before ANZUK Force was disbanded the Royal Navy instituted the
practice of group deployments to the region that continues to this day. A
strong naval task force, usually centred on an aircraft carrier and involving
other surface and subsurface assets, would be dispatched to the Indian
Ocean, South-East Asia and the Pacific on a regular basis. Most recently,
Marstrike 05 saw a Royal Navy Task Group depart for the Mediterranean
and Persian Gulf in January 2005. The carrier HMS Invincible was
accompanied by the escorts HMS Grafton, Montrose and Nottingham (her
first deployment since sustaining serious damage after colliding with Lord
Howe Island off the north-east coast of New South Wales), and RFA Fort
George. The task group joined with forces from America, France and
Oman to mount Exercise Magic Carpet in the Oman region.
Another central plank of Britain’s non-withdrawal from East of Suez
was the institution of the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA)
involving Australia, Britain, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore. The
FPDA came into existence in the same year as Britain’s Far East Fleet
sailed from Singapore for the last time. Framed in London, the agree-
ments aimed to assist Malaysia and Singapore in deterring external aggres-
sion, particularly from Indonesia. The FPDA provided for regular
inter-governmental consultations on security issues, as well as the creation
of an Integrated Air Defence System (IADS) for the Malayan peninsula.
Another main feature was the staging of regular military exercises involv-
ing the forces of the signatory nations. The FPDA still performs these
functions today. Britain continues to send forces to participate in the com-
bined military exercises and contributes RAF personnel to the IADS head-
quarters at Butterworth (in September 2005, HMS York and RFA Black
Rover took part in Exercise Bersama Lima off the east coast of Malaysia, an
annual war game involving the FPDA nations. Twenty-three FPDA naval
vessels trained together and then split to simulate a naval attack upon
FPDA nations).26 The FPDA has survived for so long because it is con-
sidered of benefit to all of the participating countries and is ‘a flexible,
consultative, loose alliance that allows signatories to participate in military
exercises when and how they can’.27 Recently, defence ministers from all
five countries agreed to incorporate non-conventional threat scenarios
into joint military exercises, as security attention shifts to matters such as
terrorism, piracy, and criminal activities, and discussed the exchange of
314 A. Jackson
intelligence on terrorism and other security matters.28 The FPDA is served
by naval base facilities for oiling and supplies at Singapore.
A further indicator of Britain’s enduring commitment to the East of
Suez region over which it had once been king was the formation in 1979
of a standing naval commitment to the Persian Gulf, which remains to this
day. The Armilla Patrol was intended to contribute to the maritime secur-
ity of the key waterway through the Straits of Hormuz, from which western
Europe imported most of its oil.29 Though small, the patrol’s contribution
to maritime security since the 1970s has been significant – for example, it
escorted more tankers in and out of the Gulf than all the other Western
navies combined during the Iran-Iraq War – as too was the Royal Navy’s
contribution in both Gulf wars.30 Also, when independence was granted to
Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in 1971, new treaties of
friendship were signed.
Though Britain’s two main East of Suez bases, Aden and Singapore,
were closed down, elements of the base infrastructure that had tradition-
ally connected the Middle East to South-East Asia and the Far East
remained open long into the 1970s. An important facility was located on
Gan Island in the Maldives. Addu Atoll, of which Gan formed a part, had
been developed as a secret fleet base at a time when the Imperial Japanese
Navy threatened to break Britain’s historic Indian Ocean pre-eminence
during the Second World War. Its strategic significance withered almost as
quickly as it had blossomed, however, when Japanese power was pinned
back by American success in the Pacific and British Commonwealth
success in Burma and the Bay of Bengal. The base was saved by the arrival
of the RAF, and in 1957 RAF Gan was established as a Far East Air Force
station.31 The agreement with the government of the Maldives gave Britain
the use of Gan until 1986. The RAF, in keeping the Middle East–Far East
air route open via the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia, also made use of
the runway on the Australian Cocos Islands (another base developed by
the British during the Second World War). As well as serving as an RAF
staging post, Gan acted as a communications facility, and a radio transmit-
ter on the island covered Britain, Cyprus, Mauritius and Singapore.
Modest facilities for the Royal Navy survived the arrival of the RAF, for
example RFAs Wave Victor and Wave Ruler serving as refuelling hulk until
the mid-1970s. As part of the run down of non-NATO commitments
resulting from the decision to withdraw from East of Suez, the Labour
government decided to leave the Maldives by 1976. At the time of its
closure the base was still home to over 600 RAF personnel, as well as many
local civilians and contracted workers from Pakistan and Sri Lanka (as
Ceylon became known in 1971). In 1976, Britain finally withdrew from
Mauritius. A defence agreement signed upon Mauritian independence in
1968 had allowed Britain to retain naval and air force facilities on the
island (a communications centre and a runway). The agreement also pro-
vided for British support in the event of internal unrest (troops were sent
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 315
to the island in 1965 and 1968) and for British leadership and training of
the Special Mobile Force, which remained under the command of a
British officer until 1978.
Elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, another island remained part of Britain’s
overseas base infrastructure. This was the Omani island of Masirah.
Fifteen miles off the coast, Masirah was a military stopping off point for
British warships and aircraft even before the Second World War, and
during the war it acted as an anti-submarine base and was used by rescue
launches (an RAF railway was also constructed). From 1954 to 1959,
British forces fought in the Jebel Akhdar War (an insurrection against the
Sultan of Oman), and British support included the use of RAF Shackel-
tons flying from Masirah.32 The Sultan’s successor, Qaboos Bin Said, came
to power in a British-backed coup in 1970. Thereafter, British forces based
on Masirah aided Qaboos, a Sandhurst graduate and former British Army
officer, in suppressing a rebellion in the Dhofar region that lasted until
1977. Masirah had been modernized and expanded as part of the RAF
route from Britain to the Far East via Cyprus and Gan, though the RAF
finally withdrew from the island in 1977.
The closure of the RAF base on Masirah did not end the relationship
between Britain and Oman. The RAF base became an Omani air force base,
and many of the personnel at the base were either from the RAF or RAF-
trained. Continued links took two other forms: on the one hand, the use of
Omani facilities for broadcasting British radio programmes to the Arab
world; on the other hand, the use of Omani military bases for stationing
British forces operating in the Gulf region. These links were buttressed by
joint military exercises and arms sales. The British Eastern Relay Station was
a BBC international broadcasting facility, which sent its first transmission in
1969.33 Programming for the station was sent to Masirah on large tapes
delivered by ship and aircraft, and by off-air relays from the BBC station on
Cyprus, until a satellite programme feed from London commenced in
1980.34 The final broadcast from the station came in 2002, when the
Masirah facility was replaced by a new mediumwave and shortwave station
on the Omani mainland at A’Seela, owned by the BBC and constructed by
Merlin.35
The other enduring link between Britain and Oman rested upon the
provision of military facilities.36 Oman has been a key ally in Britain’s (and
America’s) continued military activity in the region since the Gulf War of
1991. The nature of Britain’s links with Oman was well captured by the
visit to the country of Alan Clark, then minister of state for defence pro-
curement, in the run up to the first Gulf War. Whilst in Muscat, Clark met
his son, Major Andrew Clark of the Life Guards, who was serving as second
in command of the Sultan’s armoured force. When dining with Sultan
Qaboos at the Barakha Palace, Clark met Air Marshal Sir Erik Bennett,
commander of the Sultan’s Air Force since 1974, as well as General
Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of American forces in the Gulf.37
316 A. Jackson
Clark’s main business in Oman was to discuss the provision of bases for
British forces involved in the liberation of Kuwait (an eventual commit-
ment of over 45,000 service personnel). Even after the war, Oman con-
tinues to play a major role in host nation support for British military
activities in the Middle East, including the policing of the No Fly Zone in
northern Iraq. In the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Exercise Saif
Sareea saw the deployment of a large British naval force and over 20,000
military personnel for joint exercises in Oman and the surrounding
region.
Britain retains a territorial foothold in the East of Suez region by virtue
of its sovereignty over British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). BIOT’s
history lies in America’s great reluctance in the late 1960s to see Britain
withdraw from its East of Suez defence commitments, and Britain’s compli-
mentary reluctance to abandon those commitments without providing the
Americans with a base from which to assume responsibility for them. The
only colony to be created during the ‘decolonization decade’, BIOT com-
prised the Chagos Archipelago, until then administered by the colony of
Mauritius and the islands of Aldabra, Des Roches and Farquhar, until then
part of the Seychelles colony (returned to the Seychelles on its independ-
ence in 1976). Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago became the focus
of Anglo-American military attention as BIOT was developed over the years
into one of the most important military facility in the world.
Diego Garcia is well known as one of America’s most important overseas
bases and is rarely considered as anything other than an American military
facility under nominal British ownership. This view, however, obscures an
important strand in the thinking of the British government when the base
was created and developed, and the fact that Britain has always had access to
facilities at the base. Indeed, in creating BIOT and subsequently approving
plans for its development, British policy-makers had in mind the fact that it
would act as a means of keeping Britain in the region if it ever decided to
withdraw from its major facilities East of Suez. In 1965, the Cabinet agreed
that, in the event of Britain ever withdrawing from Aden and/or Singa-
pore, American facilities on Diego Garcia would allow Britain to continue
to operate in the area if it wished to do so.38 As has been seen in other
instances, this reflected the hallmark mindset of Britain in imperial retreat;
scale down, reduce facilities, reduce costs – but never entirely depart.
Britain participated in the development of base facilities at Diego Garcia,
as well as provided a small Royal Marines garrison to carry out the adminis-
trative and legal duties associated with British sovereignty. Britain took part
in the development of the territory’s monitoring station (including GCHQ
participation), as well as facilities for oceanic satellite surveillance.39 Over
the years, British forces have used the facilities at Diego Garcia during
operational deployments. In November 2001, for example, elements of 40
Commando Royal Marines stopped at Diego Garcia en route to
Afghanistan, and in September 2003 the submarine HMS Triumph called at
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 317
the island. Sovereignty over BIOT brings Britain other rights and
responsibilities in the Indian Ocean. In October 1991, for example, a 200
nautical-mile Fisheries Conservation and Management Zone was declared
around BIOT.40
Another important feature of Britain’s military presence in the East of
Suez region was its standing commitment to Hong Kong, which lasted
until 1997 and involved elements from all three armed services, including
several army battalions. In the 1970s, there was a permanent deployment
of a frigate and five patrol craft, though the frigate was withdrawn in 1976.
The Hong Kong Squadron had a variety of tasks to perform in pursuit of
the security of the colony and the waters of the South China Sea. For
example, the flow of illegal immigrants attempting to get into Hong Kong
in the late 1970s led to the deployment of the fast patrol and training
vessel HMS Scimitar, along with two hovercrafts, a helicopter force operat-
ing from an RFA and the 3rd Raiding Squadron of 42 Commando.41 In
1984, the new Peacock class patrol boats were dispatched, the last of a
long line of gunboats designed specifically for what had once been known
as the China Station.42 Elsewhere in the East of Suez region, one of the
most evocative remnants of empire is to be found in Britain’s military rela-
tionship with the people of Nepal. The British Army still recruits soldiers
for the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and – providing a British presence in a
former imperial domain – one of the Gurkha battalions is leased to the
Sultan of Brunei for local defence purposes, and Brunei continues to
provide a location for British training exercises (which until recently
included a Jungle Warfare Training course).
Kenya, like Oman, provides another good example of Britain’s con-
tinued military presence in the East of Suez region. Whilst in no sense a
‘neo-colonial’ presence, such connections strengthen the commitment of
the British armed forces to a global role (and their ability to perform one).
The British Army presence in Kenya is based upon two main elements, the
British Peace Support Team (BPST) and the British Army Training Unit
Kenya (BATUK). BPST’s mission is to coordinate British military assistance
to armed forces in eastern Africa in order to contribute to Security Sector
Reform and to increase the peacekeeping capacity of East African states.43
To fulfil this mission it has three main parts: The International Mine Action
Training Centre, the Peace Support Training Centre and a presence in the
Kenyan Defence Staff College. BATUK is a small permanent administrative
element based in the outskirts of Nairobi, which provides logistical support
to visiting British Army units. Under the terms of an agreement with the
Kenyan government, three infantry battalions per year carry out six-week
training exercises, and a Royal Engineer squadron also deploys to Kenya
over the same period to carry out a civil engineering project. The training,
named Exercise Grand Prix, takes place over the winter months and allows
infantry battalions to carry out live firing and experience a wide variety of
climatic conditions, from desert to rain forest.44
318 A. Jackson
West of Suez
Whilst this chapter has so far concentrated on the continuation of
Britain’s military presence in the East of Suez region long after the decol-
onization decade and the decision to withdraw, it is important to note that
Britain also remained committed to areas of the globe west of Suez. The
Royal Navy’s South Atlantic Squadron was based at Simon’s Town until
the naval base was evacuated in 1975 with the termination of Britain’s
agreement with the South African government.45 The squadron had sup-
ported Britain’s extensive interests in South Africa and South America
and contributed to the security of the vital shipping routes through the
South Atlantic. In its final years, the squadron deployed Cat class and
Cathedral class frigates which, among other duties, patrolled to the Falk-
land Islands.46 There was then the naval base at Bermuda, home to the
West Indies Squadron, which in its final years deployed Bay class frigates
(which also patrolled to the Falklands). The West Indies Squadron ceased
as an independent command in 1976 when the senior naval officer West
Indies was withdrawn.47 The following year, in the time-honoured tradi-
tion of imperial policing, British Army units were sent to Bermuda in the
wake of unrest, and Bermuda remained a base for anti-submarine warfare
operations and surveillance until Britain finally closed its Bermuda base in
the mid-1990s. Still sovereign in Bermuda, the British government can
choose to reopen military facilities on the island should circumstances
ever demand.
The closure of British bases in the West Indies did not, however,
denote an end to Britain’s defence interests in the region. Britain retained
numerous colonies in the Caribbean, including Bermuda in the Atlantic,
and remained committed to their defence. Britain also continues to con-
tribute to the resolution of other security problems that affect the region,
such as the ongoing war against drug smuggling. One of the main ways in
which these commitments are met is by the Royal Navy’s provision of a
standing force in the region. Due to cutbacks in the number of Royal Navy
escort vessels, this force was reduced in 2005, in the light of which the
Atlantic Patrol (North) was only to include a destroyer or frigate sent to
the Caribbean between July and October, the months when the region is
most at risk from hurricanes. An RFA tanker was to remain on station in
the West Indies between May and November, equipped with aviation
assets to support disaster relief and the fight against drug smuggling.48
Elsewhere in the region, the Royal Navy’s Maritime Warfare Centre over-
sees fleet trial programmes at the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation
Centre (AUTEC) in the Bahamas, featuring a 6,000-foot deep chasm
‘bristling with sensors and monitoring equipment’.49
British bases remained functioning elsewhere in the ‘west of Suez’
region. Ascension Island houses an air base, a legacy of the Second World
War when it was leased to America as part of the Allied effort to beat the
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 319
U-boats and to stage aircraft from North America to Europe and the
Middle East. British forces have access to the base, which they used to
great effect during the Falklands War, when Ascension provided a vital
mid-Atlantic haven for British warships and aircraft journeying south (as
well as the Victor refuelling tankers that enabled Vulcan bombers to
attack Stanley airport). The RAF continues to use the base on Ascension
Island today to support its regular flights to the Falklands. Ascension’s use-
fulness to Britain is augmented by the presence of a BBC transmitter
broadcasting to Africa, and Cable and Wireless is also represented on the
island.50 Further south, British Antarctic Territory is testament to Britain’s
historic presence in the polar regions, and Britain’s claims are supported
by the Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol Ship HMS Endurance (forming part of the
Atlantic Patrol (South)). A strong army garrison is maintained in the Falk-
land Islands, supported by the RAF, and the Royal Navy’s two Castle-class
patrol ships are dedicated to the security of Britain’s South Atlantic
dependencies (a role to be taken over by the new offshore patrol vessel,
HMS Clyde, in 2007).51 At the time of writing, the frigate HMS Portland has
recently returned after a six-month deployment in the South Atlantic,
during which she covered 28,500 nautical miles and visited six countries
and six dependent territories (colonies), including Ascension Island,
Gambia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha, as
well as conducting patrols around the Falkland Islands and South
Georgia.52
In the Mediterranean, traditionally one of Britain’s most important
areas of overseas interest, bases remained long after the decolonization
decade.53 When Malta became independent in 1964, Britain continued to
rent facilities on the island, as did NATO. In 1979, the government led by
Dom Mintoff decided not to renew the agreement. Britain still has base
facilities at two of its other traditional Mediterranean strong points, the
colony of Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus. Gibraltar is a
regular port of call and repair and replenishment base for British and
allied warships, as well as is home to the Royal Navy’s Gibraltar Patrol Boat
Squadron and the Royal Gibraltar Regiment. Cyprus was once the home
of Canberra bombers and conventional and nuclear bombs, providing the
nuclear umbrella for the defence of Britain’s CENTO allies (Iran, Pak-
istan and Turkey). Today, Cyprus houses the largest RAF base outside of
Britain. It also plays host each year to the RAF Aerobatics Team (the Red
Arrows). The Sovereign Base Areas provide important staging facilities for
British (and allied) forces moving between east and west, and communica-
tions and intelligence-gathering facilities. The British Army also retains a
presence in Cyprus based around two resident infantry battalions. In late
2003, the Cyprus garrison also consisted of 62 Cyprus Support Squadron
Royal Engineers, the Joint Service Signals Unit, 16 Flight Army Air Corps
and personnel from various supporting arms such as the Royal Logistics
Corps and Royal Military Police. There is a separate commitment, up to
320 A. Jackson
regimental size, to the United Nations peacekeeping mission on the island
(UNFICYP). The British contingent has command of sector two, which
covers the capital Nicosia.54 The Royal Navy regularly deploys warships in
the Mediterranean, especially as a contribution to NATO exercises and its
standing force. In 2007, HMS Somerset, for example, served as part of the
NATO Standing Response Force Maritime Group in the Mediterranean,
and in the autumn/winter of 2005, HMS Manchester spent four months as
part of a NATO task group operating in a counter-terrorism role. In the
Mediterranean, the destroyer will conduct three exercises with allies and
form part of an overt presence along busy shipping lanes, keeping an eye
out for illegal traffic.55 As a demonstration of the value of bases and
regular deployments in the Mediterranean, the Royal Navy and the Cyprus
SBA played a prominent role in Operation Highbrow, the evacuation
from Lebanon of thousands of entitled personnel during the July 2006
Israeli–Lebanon crisis.
Other links between Britain and its former colonies in the west of Suez
region remained long into the post-imperial years. Belize, for example,
was home to British forces and a site of regular British training exercises
until the mid-1990s. Deployments in Belize gave British forces an
opportunity to undertake valuable jungle training, though the primary
purpose of the deployment was to deter neighbouring Guatemala from
pursuing its historic claim to Belizean territory. RAF units had been sent
to Belize in 1977 in the light of a flare up of the Guatemalan threat and
remained until 1994.56 Though Britain’s permanent deployment in Belize
ended, British forces continued to train there, and in 1994 the British
Army Training Support Unit Belize was established to support Land
Command exercises. Annual infantry exercises take place, including
water-based exercises, and a detachment of the Army Air Corps is sta-
tioned in the country to support them. Recently, HMS Cumberland has
tested her 4.5-inch gun against shore targets, whilst Exercise Green River
was mounted, featuring Royal Marine in fast inflatable boats ‘attacking’
the frigate in a simulation of the kind of attack that damaged USS Cole at
Aden in 2000.57 In the past twelve months, No. 34 Squadron RAF Regi-
ment has also undergone training in Belize.

Just happened to be sailing by: the habit of global

deployment and involvement
Despite the contraction of the empire and the increased importance of the
military commitment to NATO, Britain never lost the habit of positioning
its forces worldwide; there was always a British battalion on exercise in a
steaming jungle somewhere, a warship cruising in a polar region or an RAF
detachment exercising with an ally in some distant tropical zone. This
global presence, and the preparation for operations in different climates
and links with allies that it inevitably brought in its wake, has meant that
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 321
British force has been available and capable of taking part in a host of mili-
tary actions around the world, from war fighting to peace support opera-
tions and disaster relief, and has allowed the government the luxury of
considering a military option. The fact that British forces maintained a
routine presence in places such as the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, for
example, made it easy to mount operations, and interoperability with other
nations’ forces – a key element in most modern interventions – has been
facilitated by the practice of exercising with the armed forces of other
countries throughout the world. Good examples are provided by both the
recent Gulf Wars. As soon as Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher was able to order British warships on either
side of the Indian Ocean, at Penang and Mombasa, to join HMS York in the
Gulf. When Iraq was invaded in 2003, British forces that had remained in
the region were well placed to intervene. The RAF, which had policed the
No Fly Zone since the first Gulf War, had over 1,000 personnel and twenty-
five aircraft already on station in 2003, a pre-existing nucleus around which
a significant build up of British air power could take place.
British forces have been involved in a plethora of humanitarian opera-
tions, often because they happened to be near to hand.58 Thus, for
example, when volcanoes erupted on the British island of Montserrat in
1997, the Royal Navy’s standing commitment of a West Indies guardship
meant that forces were instantly available to help with evacuations from
those parts of the island rendered uninhabitable. Similarly, in 2005, HMS
Chatham and RFA Diligence were on hand to provide aid in the wake of the
tsunami disaster, whilst HMS Scott, a hydrological survey vessel operating
in the Indian Ocean, provided graphic evidence of the tsunami’s effects
on the ocean bed.59 British forces have frequently been involved in
humanitarian operations around the world (in addition to peace support
and peacekeeping operations). In the thirty years after the withdrawal
from East of Suez, the RAF, for example, sent units to East Pakistan
(1970), Nicaragua (1972), Nepal (1973), Mali (1973), Ethiopia (1984),
Chile (1991), Turkey (1992), the Caribbean (1992), Somalia (1993),
Holland (1995), Montserrat (1995), Cyprus (1995 and 1998) and Mozam-
bique (2002).
Another cause of Britain’s continuing military engagement with the
wider world has been its strong links with former colonies, often lasting
long after the transfer of power. The end of empire, far from severing mil-
itary links with overseas territories as might reasonably have been
expected, could actually be the cause of military operations and new
defence commitments. This could come in the form of a military inter-
vention to support a fledgling former colony entering the uncertain world
of independent nationhood either to suppress an internal rebellion (for
example, Kenya, Mauritius, New Hebrides, Oman, Tanzania, Uganda) or
to repulse a foreign takeover (Belize, Kuwait, Malaysia); it could come in
the form of defence treaties granting British forces the use of bases or
322 A. Jackson
facilities in the new nation (Ceylon, Malaysia, Nigeria); or it could come
in the form of agreements for the employment of British personnel to
train and lead indigenous military forces (Brunei, Mauritius, Oman).
Between 1960 and 1980, Britain engaged in counterinsurgency opera-
tions in Aden, Cyprus, Kenya, Malaya and Oman, and undertook a major
military commitment to defend newly independent Malaysia from Indone-
sia.60 Expeditionary forces were sent to defend Kuwait from Iraq (thirty
years before the first Gulf War), to prevent armed insurrection in Kenya,
Tanzania and Uganda, and to quell communal violence in Mauritius
(twice).61 Rebels were deterred in Brunei, and a new government was
defended by Royal Marines in the New Hebrides in 1980. Rhodesia’s
illegal declaration of independence in 1965 saw the creation of the navy’s
Beira Patrol, intended to prevent goods bound for Rhodesia reaching
Mozambican ports, and when majority rule elections were finally held in
1980, they were supervised by a British governor and a Commonwealth
Monitoring Force backed by the British Army and the RAF.62 In 1982, the
Falkland Islands and South Georgia were forcibly retaken following an
Argentinian invasion. British forces have been involved in numerous
humanitarian operations and have often been in a position to evacuate
civilians from dangerous regions, a naval task force standing off Iran, for
example, in 1978 and another off Aden in 1986. Peacekeeping and disas-
ter relief deployments have become a core activity of the British armed
forces, even in regions not of historic British interest (East Timor and
Mozambique). Recently, Britain has become heavily involved in helping
the government of Sierra Leone to resist internal insurrection, an inter-
vention that fits neatly into the continuum of British military operations
since the 1950s. It is likely that Britain will continue to be called upon to
provide military assistance to former colonies and other allies around the
world.63
In many ways, the non-retreat from East of Suez and the wider world
highlighted in this chapter should come as no surprise; just because the
empire was dwindling and Britain’s political, economic and strategic inter-
ests were becoming focused closer to home, it did not mean that a sever-
ance of global connections built up over half a millennium of British
endeavour in the wider world logically followed. Many British interests in
the wider world remained ‘live’ long after Britain’s demise as an imperial
power; Britain’s economy remained uniquely intertwined with the
economies of other countries around the world, and Britain remained a
hub of global finance and an addicted international trader. Over ten
million Britons continued to live in other countries, and Britain’s political
and diplomatic presence in the world remained extensive. It is easy to
forget the fact that Britain never ceased to be one of the world’s most
powerful states and busiest international actors, deploying strategic nuclear
weapons and retaining conventional armed forces capable of meeting
global commitments. As well as being an important economic and political
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 323
power (reflected in its status as a G8 member and Permanent Member of
the United Nations Security Council), Britain remained a global player in
other spheres, holding on, for example, to an intelligence reach second
only to that of America and Russia.64
Britain retained sufficient political will to act upon the world stage
and remained a leading member of global organizations such as the
United Nations and the Commonwealth. A central role in these organi-
zations was an important factor in the desire of successive British govern-
ments to remain engaged globally. The British government, whilst
seldom placing the Commonwealth in the limelight, continued to reap
benefits on the global stage through membership of the organization,
particularly in driving its foreign policy agendas in the spheres of secur-
ity, development and governance.65 Many states in the world continued
to view links with Britain as an important building block of foreign
policy and continued to value British friendship. Security links with
Commonwealth members remain strong and are not just of the military
variety. The practice of sending Scotland Yard personnel to investigate
particular crimes or contribute to the fight against transnational security
threats, for example, remains an important feature of the help that the
former colonial power can offer.66 In addition to security and defence
links, many former British colonies have been granted privileged access
to the European market by virtue of successive Lomé Conventions,
which allow former colonial territories access to the single market.67
Though Britain no longer dominated the Commonwealth in an imperial
fashion, it remained a key member of the organization and could count
on Commonwealth support in the international system if the wind was in
the right direction. A good example was provided by the Falklands con-
flict, where the support of the Commonwealth was important in giving
Britain the moral upper hand over Argentina, and during which Com-
monwealth allies made telling contributions in isolating Argentina at the
United Nations (as well, in the case of New Zealand, as volunteering mil-
itary support to free British forces for deployment to the South
Atlantic).68 It is also important to acknowledge the expanding, extra-
European role of NATO in the post-Cold War years, another factor
leading Britain towards deployments in the wider world, be they frigates
in the Mediterranean or special forces and Harriers in Afghanistan.
Finally, the habit of interest and intervention in the wider world never
died, and the British public’s fascination with the world beyond Europe
remained as ardent as did the disinterest with which many Britons
viewed the affairs of states closer to home. A variety of government
departments remained intensely interested in the affairs of other coun-
tries. Though the offices of state that had once run the empire were
closed between 1947 and 1968, the merger of the FO and the Common-
wealth Relations Office created the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
of today. The Department of Trade and Industry, the Department for
324 A. Jackson
International Development, and the Treasury are other offices of state
heavily involved in foreign affairs. Britain remains a major international
donor, providing, for example, most of a country such as Uganda’s
foreign aid and holding the largest share of Nigeria’s debt. In the early
years of the twenty-first century, Britain’s two most important politicians,
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, invested considerable personal political
capital in commitments to Africa, through vehicles like the Commission
for Africa and the campaign for debt relief. Britain’s humanitarian and
‘civilizing’ aspirations, sympathies and vanities remain strong.
The visible commitment of British foreign and defence policy to the
wider world was thrown into sharp relief by the end of the Cold War and
by the arrival in power of a zestful Labour government seeking to present
a coherent vision of British interaction with the world. One of the more
illustrative sound bites to come out of the Labour government’s review of
foreign and security policy was the stated desire for Britain to be a ‘force
for good’ in the world, and this included a return to a traditional British
defence emphasis on expeditionary warfare, outlined in the Strategic
Defence Review of 1998. The review emphasized the global aspects of
Britain’s foreign and security policy, pinpointed Europe, North Africa,
the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as regions of key importance to
Britain, and resolved to adopt a ‘go to the crisis’ attitude, thereby com-
mitting Britain’s armed forces to global deployments.69 In outlining this
foreign and defence policy stance, the review recognized that Britain’s
trade and interests needed to be protected wherever they happened to be
in the world. The review underlined the fact that Britain was peculiarly
exposed to global economic fluctuations or interruptions in trade and
the movement of financial resources, as well as to global threats in areas
such as migration, the environment, terrorism and transnational crime.
The review also claimed that British cultural values merited propagation
and defence. In the words of Geoffrey Till, ‘the implications of this set of
conclusions were enormous. They illustrated the extent to which the
decision of 1968 [to withdraw from East of Suez] had been turned on
their head’.70 It might be said in addition that the conclusions of the Stra-
tegic Defence Review were an acknowledgement of the fact that extra-
European regions had never ceased to matter to Britain and British
foreign and security policy, and that Britain’s commitments and deploy-
ments in extra-European regions had never stopped, notwithstanding the
apparent finality of the 1967 and 1968 announcements. The Strategic
Defence Review was not so much a break with the past as a recalibration of
Britain’s security policy, which had for generations sought to balance the
overriding need to secure European peace whilst also nurturing Britain’s
global interests. With the Cold War at an end, and Britain no longer
under threat of homeland invasion or destruction, official policy could
again emphasize the wider world, ‘policeman’, aspects of British foreign
and defence policy.71
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 325
Empire still?
The quiet death of the phrase ‘imperial defence’ was matched by that of
the ‘British Empire’. After the 1960s, anything vaguely imperial tended to
be characterized as an ‘imperial legacy’, a ‘remnant’, a ‘limpet colony’ or
a ‘fag end’ of empire, hardly language likely to suggest continuity and
continued vigour in relationships between Britain and various parts of the
world. A review of the end of ‘empire’, in terms of language as well as
power and actions within the international system, is long overview, for at
least two reasons.72 First, such a study plays profitably into current debates
about American ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’, and the compare-and-con-
trast study of British hegemony in the past and American hegemony
today, as well as the study of the ‘handover of the baton’ period of twenti-
eth-century history when America replaced Britain as the main external
player in one part of the world after another.73 Second, there is a serious
case to be made that, given the relatively straightforward definitions of
‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’ that were once common, the British Empire
and British imperialism never ceased. What ceased was the use of those
terms. This was entirely understandable, though the sudden death of
‘empire’ and ‘imperial defence’ blinded people to continuations in
Britain’s power and defence posture, and an overseas presence that did
not die in the 1960s but continues to the present day.
Two British historians have strayed on to this turf recently, without
moving to occupy it. Correlli Barnett suggested that Britain acts in an
imperial manner today, tracing a line of imperial interventions, based on
misplaced humanitarianism rather than hard-nosed national security
appraisals, from Dr Arnold in the nineteenth century to Tony Blair in the
twenty-first.74 There is then Jeremy Black, who has written about the
British Empire in the present tense and about the continuing fact of
British imperial power in the early twenty-first century.75 This provides an
interesting opening for academics to reinvigorate the debate about the
meaning of ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’, and, more profitably, to open a
debate that should have taken place years ago, namely, when did empire
end for Britain? Is there a threshold in terms of the size and population
of overseas colonies that must be met in order to qualify for ‘empire’
status, and, if so, when did Britain fall below it? Still possessing colonies
from the Pacific to the Caribbean and dispensing power around the world
in a variety of ways, from aircraft carriers and investment banking to the
BBC and GCHQ, some might ask if British imperialism ever ended. Of
course, it all comes down to definition, and when considered alongside
recent debate about whether or not America is an imperial power, it
might be safer to align with the historian who once said that ‘imperialism
is no word for scholars’.
Whilst avoiding the semantic aerobics, the use and then non-use of the
term ‘British empire’, and the commonly assumed demise of that empire
326 A. Jackson
in the 1960s, has distorted our view of Britain’s history in the late twenti-
eth century. It has done this by making Britain appear too suddenly as a
‘post imperial’ state, thereby emphasizing a shift from empire to post-
empire that never fully took place, a sort of ‘now you see it, now you
don’t’ view of the empire and world power that hardly meets the facts.
Indeed, it would have been a great surprise if elements of ‘imperialism’ –
perhaps shading towards the more equitable state-state relationship often
described as ‘influence’ – had just disappeared once most of the colonies
had gained their independence, given that definitions of empire com-
monly encompass ‘informal empire’ elements that seldom discontinued
the moment the Union Flag was lowered and a new national anthem
unleashed upon the world. Furthermore, ‘empire’ was always bound up
with notions of military, political and economic power that were to a large
extent free standing. Jeremy Black acknowledges the importance of this
when he writes that ‘an assessment of the nature of the British Empire at
the start of the new millennium requires a focus not on territorial control
but on the maritime potency that was so important a strand in Western
imperial history’.76 Whilst Britain’s power in the spheres that underpinned
empire – political, diplomatic, military, economic, cultural – might have
contracted in the post-war decades, it never disappeared, and a great deal
remains to this day.77 If the term ‘British Empire’ was employed to
describe a system whereby Britain had political control over distant territo-
ries, and projected power in the international system on a number of
levels, then the phenomenon never ended, even if the use of the label did.

Notes
1 Command 3999, The Strategic Defence Review (London, 1998). When Napoleon,
Wilhelm, Hitler or Stalin threatened, Britain’s eyes became fixed on national
defence and the balance of power in Europe. In between these periods of
national threat, Britain’s gaze returned to its default setting – the desire to play
a military role in the wider world, shaping the international system to its
advantage. Both strategic fixations were mutually pursued, however; even when
eyes were fixed on Europe, peripheral vision, or the occasional sideways
glance, maintained Britain’s military and strategic interest in the extra-Euro-
pean world.
2 Ritchie Ovendale (ed.), British Defence Policy Since 1945 (Manchester, 1994), 8.
3 Rod Thornton makes this point with regard to the Army in ‘The British Army
and the Origins of its Minimum Force Philosophy’, Small Wars and Insurgencies,
15 (2004): 81–106. For the Royal Navy, the idea comes from Admiral Sir Sandy
Woodward. He wrote that the 1974 Defence Review confirmed the Royal Navy’s
concentration on anti-submarine warfare in the north-east Atlantic, the navy’s
part in the NATO-focused defence policy that was a hallmark of the decade. He
added that the mindset away from expeditionary warfare probably began in 1966
when it was decided not to replace the carrier HMS Ark Royal (eventually paid off
in 1978). ‘But we hung onto it somehow, though we dressed it up as North East
Atlantic ASW [anti-submarine warfare] with a bit of defence of the Northern
Flank’. See Admiral Sir John (Sandy) Woodward, ‘Introduction’, in Stephen
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 327
Badsey, Rob Havers, and Mark Grove (eds), The Falklands Conflict Twenty Years on:
Lessons for the Future (London, 2005), 1.
4 In a resounding statement of the fact that the end of empire did not signal
Britain’s willingness to retreat as a world power, it was Wilson who said in the
year that Labour came to office (1964) that ‘Britain’s borders are on the
Himalayas’.
5 One might also include the strategically placed Rockall in the North Atlantic,
annexed, in the face of a Danish claim, in 1955.
6 See Robert Aldrich and John Connell, The Last Colonies (Cambridge, 1009),
and John Connell, ‘Eternal Empire: Britain’s Caribbean Colonies in the Global
Arena’, in Aarón Gamaliel Ramos and Angel Israel Rivera (eds), Islands at the
Crossroads: Politics in the Non-Independent Caribbean (Kingston, 2001), 115–135.
7 Michael Walker, ‘Transforming UK Armed Forces’, RUSI Journal, 150, 1 (2005):
46–48.
8 COS, ‘Future Defence Policy. The Overall Strategic Plan, May 1947’, repro-
duced as appendix 7 in Julian Lewis, Changing Direction: British Military Planning
for Post-War Strategic Defence, 1942–1947 (London, 1988).
9 An important point in explaining this stance is that although Britain had been
eclipsed as a power able to unilaterally guarantee security in imperial regions,
the one power that could offer such guarantees – America – was not bound by
the same burden of responsibility to do so as Britain was. Therefore, circum-
stances were conceivable in which America might be reluctant to go to the aid
of a British colony or one of its Commonwealth allies – hence the need for
Britain to retain an independent stance to the greatest extent possible, and
hence the surprising longevity of intra-Commonwealth defence arrangements
(particularly those centred on the security of the South-East Asian region).
10 The dilemma – NATO defence in the face of a Russian nuclear threat versus
defence commitments, imperial and Cold War, in the wider world – was com-
pounded not only by the state of the economy, but also by the steeply rising
unit cost of military platforms and the new post-war requirement for Britain to
remain strong in conventional military terms whilst also affording the entrance
fee to the nuclear club.
11 Brian Lapping, End of Empire (London, 1985), 277.
12 See John Darwin, Britain and Decolonization: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-
War World (Basingstoke, 1988), 229–231, for a summary of the reasons why
Suez was not such an imperial breaking point.
13 Until the early 1970s, Britain had a few units stationed in Thailand as part of its
commitment to South-East Asian defence through SEATO.
14 The audit of empire was not as adventurous as is sometimes suggested,
however. It did not recommend an imperial vanishing act, and concluded that
many of Britain’s colonial responsibilities would remain for the foreseeable
future.
15 Barring its involvement with the rebel regime of Ian Smith in Rhodesia.
16 John Darwin makes this point with a flourish: ‘Colonial rule must die that influ-
ence might live; empire must be sacrificed to world power’. J. Darwin, Britain and
Decolonization, 334.
17 One of the reasons for the closure was the fact that, in the light of Suez, the
government of Ceylon had decided not to renew the ten-year treaty, signed on
independence in 1948, that allowed the Royal Navy the use of the island’s naval
facilities.
18 Neville Brown, Arms Without Empire (London, 1968), 66. The book was first
published in the previous year, before the withdrawal from Aden. See also
Philip Darby, British Defence Policy East of Suez, 1947–1968 (London, 1973).
19 See Brown, Arms Without Empire.
328 A. Jackson
20 An excellent recent treatment of this subject is provided by Saki Dockrill,
Britain’s Retreat from East of Suez: The Choice Between Europe and the World? (Bas-
ingstoke, 2002).
21 In the light of biting economic crises at home, including the devaluation of
sterling in 1967, in 1968 the announcement was updated: British forces would
be out by 1971.
22 See Andrea Benvenuti, ‘The British Military Withdrawal from Southeast Asia
and Its Impact on Australia’s Cold War Strategic Interests’, Cold War History, 5
(2005): 189–210.
23 Brown, Arms Without Empire, 27.
24 Australia and New Zealand lobbied for Britain’s continued commitment to the
region, seeing South-East Asia as a frontline of their own defence.
25 David Stevens, ‘The British Naval Role East of Suez: An Australian Perspective’,
in Greg Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 (London,
2005), pp. 120–141.
26 Navy News, October 2005. York then took up the role of Commander Task
Force 150 in the Indian Ocean to participate in Exercise Deep Sabre, involving
thirteen other navies. On a nine month Far-East deployment last year, HMS
Exeter exercised with the navies of Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Russia and
Thailand.
27 See Damon Bristow, ‘The Five Power Defence Arrangements: Southeast Asia’s
Unknown Regional Security Organization’, Contemporary Southeast Asia: A
Journal of International Strategic Affairs, 27 (2005): 1–20, and Khoo How San,
‘The Five Power Defence Arrangements: If it Ain’t Broke . . .’, SAFTI: Journal of
the Singapore Armed Forces, 26 (2000).
28 Russell Marshall, ‘Security in the Pacific Rim: A New Zealand Perspective’, RUSI
Journal, 149, 4 (2004), pp. 46–48. For the establishment of bases in region, see
Donald Berlin, ‘The “Great Base Race” in the Indian Ocean Littoral: Conflict
Prevention or Stimulation?’, Contemporary South Asia, 13 (2004): 239–255.
29 See Warren Chin, ‘Operations in a War Zone: The Royal Navy in the Persian
Gulf in the 1980s’, in Ian Speller (ed.), The Royal Navy and Maritime Power in the
Twentieth Century (London, 2005), 181–196.
30 Geoffrey Till, ‘The Return to Globalism: The Royal Navy East of Suez,
1975–2003’, in G. Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 257.
31 Peter Doling, From Port T to RAF Gan: An Illustrated History of the British Military
Bases at Addu Atoll in the Maldive Islands, 1941–1976 (Bognor Regis, 2004). For
the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War, see Ashley
Jackson, War and Empire in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean (Basingstoke, 2001),
and A. Jackson, The British Empire and the Second World War (London, 2005).
32 See Jan Morris, Sultan of Oman (London, 1957). Morris travelled with the
Sultan of Muscat and Oman during the conflict. Also see John Newsinger,
British Counterinsurgency from Palestine to Northern Ireland (Basingstoke, 2002).
33 ‘BBC Marisah Relay’, found at http://radiodx.com/spdxr/bbc_masirah.htm
on 13/1/05.
34 Another powerful tool of the BBC is BBC Monitoring, a source of media
information, which together with its American partner, Foreign Broadcast
Information Service, tracks over 3,000 sources in the international media and
selects important information on behalf of the British and American govern-
ments. Up to 2,500 reports are published per day on political, economic and
security issues, and other topics such as human rights, organized crime or the
environment. Advertisement, RUSI Journal, 150, 4 (2005), back cover.
35 For an overview of the island’s history and its links with Britain, particularly its
defence links, see Colin Richardson, Masirah: Tales from a Desert Island (Durham,
2005).
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 329
36 Until the 1970s, Bahrain had been an important base for British forces sta-
tioned in the Gulf.
37 Alan Clark, Diaries (London, 1993), 371–373.
38 The National Archives, Kew. FO 371/184523. Draft memo by foreign secretary
and defence secretary for circulation at Defence and Overseas Policy Commit-
tee, ‘Defence Facilities in the Indian Ocean’, 2/4/65.
39 ‘Dirty Work in the Indian Ocean’, found at www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/
may98/indocean.html on 26/5/04.
40 The construction of an American naval communications station began in March
1971 and was commissioned in March 1973. The first C-130 transport aircraft
landed in July of that year. A weather service detachment was present from
1971, and a naval support facility was commissioned in 1977. From 1980, the
base was capable of holding all of the equipments necessary to equip and supply
a Marine Corps brigade (16,500 men). This was part of the American logistical
practice of stationing ‘prepositioned’ supply ships and facilities at bases around
the world (another was in Oman). From 1982, a permanent detachment was
established on the island to fly supplies to aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean.
B-52’s were first deployed to Diego Garcia in 1987. Over the course of seventy-
six days during operation in Afghanistan in 2001, four B-1 and five B-52 sorties
were flown each day. No. 77 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force was deployed
to Diego Garcia as a contribution to Coalition operations. Diego Garcia also
supports elements of America’s space programme and is used by B-2 stealth
bombers.
41 G. Till, ‘The Return to Globalism: The Royal Navy East of Suez’, in Kennedy
(ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 249.
42 P.J. Melson (ed.), White Ensign–Red Dragon: The History of the Royal Navy in Hong
Kong 1841–1997 (Hong Kong, 1997).
43 Security Sector Reform is an increasingly important aspect of the work of British
forces as Britain and its allies seek to build stable, internally controlled institu-
tions in places such as Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Kosovo and Sierra
Leone. In Iraq, for example, the Royal Navy is a mentor to the embryonic Iraqi
Navy based at Umm Qasr. RFA Diligence is currently acting as a forward base for
the Iraqi patrol boats.
44 Some of this material has been taken from the British Army website. Training
in all types of terrain and climate environments enables British military forces
to operate almost anywhere in the world. It is a key feature in the global
posture of the British armed forces.
45 See Peter Henshaw, ‘Strategy and the Transfer of Simon’s Town, 1948–1957’,
in Peter Henshaw and Ronald Hyam (eds), The Lion and the Springbok: Britain
and South Africa Since the Boer War (Cambridge, 2003), 230–253.
46 See Geoffrey Sloan, ‘The Geopolitics of the Falklands Conflict’, in S. Badsey, R.
Havers, and M. Grove (eds), The Falklands Conflict Twenty Years on, 25.
47 Ibid. An interesting postscript to the demise of the South Atlantic Squadron
and the West Indies Squadron was that their removal ended the layered system
of defence that protected the Falkland Islands.
48 Reported in Navy News, August 2005.
49 Navy News, October 2005.
50 See Peter Hore, ‘The “Logistics Miracle” of Ascension Island’, in S. Badsey, R.
Havers, and M. Grove (eds), The Falklands Conflict Twenty Years on, 213–225
51 Navy News, April 2005.
52 Navy News, October 2005.
53 Britain retained military facilities in Libya until 1970.
54 Official British Army website, ‘Deployments’, www.army.mod.uk/around
theworld.cyp/index.htm, found on 14/6/04, site last reviewed 15/10/03.
330 A. Jackson
55 Navy News, August 2005 and October 2005.
56 See AP3003, A Brief History of the RAF (London, 2004).
57 Navy News, October 2005. It was reported on BBC Radio 4 on 31 October 2005
that Cumberland had seized narcotics worth over £200 million off Nicaragua
whilst on this deployment in the West Indies region.
58 I have taken this idea from the work of Geoffrey Till.
59 Hydrology remains as much a part of the work of the Royal Navy as it was in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when British ships provided the informa-
tion for maps and charts that went on to be used worldwide. In 2004–2005, for
example, HMS Echo travelled 77,000 nautical miles during an eighteen-month
deployment in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf,
conducting detailed surveys of underwater hazards in key channels and around
oil platforms in the latter region.
60 These campaigns have received a great deal of attention in ‘decolonization
wars’ books, which are numerous. For example, Robin Neillands, A Fighting
Retreat: The British Empire, 1947–1997 (London, 1997); Lawrence James, Imperial
Rearguard: Wars of Empire, 1919–1985 (London, 1988); Thomas Mockaitis, British
Counterinsurgency, 1919–1960 (London, 1990). Some of these campaigns have
recently received welcome new attention. See for example, Ian Speller, ‘The
Royal Navy, Expeditionary Operations, and the End of Empire, 1956–1975’, in
G. Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 178–198; Christopher Tuck,
‘The Royal Navy and Confrontation, 1963–1966’, in G. Kennedy (ed.), British
Naval Strategy East of Suez, 199–220, and ‘Borneo 1963–66: Counterinsurgency
Operations and War Termination’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 15 (2004):
89–111; Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961–1965:
Britain, the US, Indonesia, and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge, 2002); Ian
Speller, ‘Naval Diplomacy: Operation Vantage, 1961’ (Kuwait), in I. Speller
(ed.), The Royal Navy and Maritime Power, 164–180; Timothy Parsons, The 1964
Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa (Westport, CT, 2003) (Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda); and Ashley Jackson, ‘The Deployment of British Forces to
Mauritius, 1965 and 1968’ (unpublished paper).
61 The little-known intervention in Tanzania provides a good illustration and
sounds very ‘modern’. In January 1964, elements of the Tanzanian Army
mutinied at Dar-es-Salaam and Tabora, imprisoning their officers. Government
buildings, the presidential palace and the radio station were surrounded. Presid-
ent Julius Nyerere fled the capital, after appealing to the British government for
help. The aircraft carrier HMS Centaur carrying 45 Commando accompanied by
the destroyer HMS Cambrian was dispatched from Aden and was able to poise in
the Zanzibar Channel until called for. When it was, Marines were deployed
ashore, supported by helicopters and covered by Sea Vixens. There was a gunfire
demonstration from the destroyer. Within forty minutes, the Marines had
secured Dar-es-Salaam and its airport, and caused the rebels to surrender.
62 On operation Agila the RAF was tasked with flying the 1,300-strong Common-
wealth Monitoring Force into Rhodesia-Zimbabwe and sustaining it whilst in
theatre.
63 For an overview of the causes, course and consequences of British intervention
in Sierra Leone, see Stuart Griffin, Joint Operations: A Brief History (London,
2005); Commodore Steve Jermy, ‘Maritime Air Power’, RUSI Defence Systems 7, 2
(2004): 84–86; and Andrew Dorman, As Yet Untitled (London, 2005).
64 A 1948 secret treaty signed with Canada and Australia divided the world for
eavesdropping and signals interception purposes. Peter Hennessy, ‘The British
Secret State Old and New’, RUSI Journal, 150, 3 (2005), 16–23. This relation-
ship is an important facet of the Anglo-American relationship; without access
to American intelligence material, Britain’s reach would wither.
 Imperial defence in the post-imperial era 331
65 See ‘Blair’s Britain and the Commonwealth’, The Round Table: A Journal of Com-
monwealth Affairs, 380 (2005): 381–392, and Peter Marshall, ‘Twenty-first
Century Britain and the Commonwealth’, The Round Table: A Journal of Com-
monwealth Affairs, 376 (2004): 571–582.
66 For example, in 1995, Scotland Yard were called in to investigate the alleged
‘medicine’ murder of a child in Mochudi, Botswana, a crime that had engen-
dered such public outrage that riots occurred in the capital. At present, a Scot-
land Yard officer occupies a high position in the Jamaican constabulary to help
in the fight against drug smuggling, a regional, and British, problem.
67 For example, eighteen former British and French colonies in Africa, the Pacific
and the Caribbean (ACP) currently export a fixed amount of sugar to Europe
at the same price that Europe pays its own sugar growers. Though there are
pressures to remove these barriers to free trade (mainly in favour of Latin
American producers), if successful there will inevitably be calls for European
compensation/adjustment money to be paid to the ACP producers that lose
out, as they attempt to restructure their economies away from sugar depen-
dence. See The Economist, 24/9/05.
68 See Edmund Yorke, ‘ “The Empire Strikes Back?” The Commonwealth
Response to the Falklands Conflict’, in S. Badsey, R. Havers, and M. Grove
(eds), The Falklands Conflict Twenty Years on, 170–192. It is interesting to note
that there are currently about 1,500 Commonwealth nationals serving in the
British forces and that entry into the British armed forces is restricted to British
and Commonwealth citizens.
69 Previous defence reviews had looked firmly to the world beyond Europe as
well. In the 1980s, the COS developed plans for operations outside of the
NATO area; the 1987 Defence White Paper emphasized the importance of ‘out
of area’ operations to support British interests throughout the world; and the
1993 Statement of Defence Estimates eliminated the distinction between ‘in’
and ‘out of area’ operations. See R. Ovendale, British Defence Policy.
70 Geoffrey Till, ‘The Return to Globalism: The Royal Navy East of Suez’, in G.
Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 262.
71 There are those who argue that this view of the world and Britain’s role in it is
diametrically opposed to Britain’s national interests. See Paul Robinson, ‘Why
Britain Needs a New Defence Policy’, RUSI Journal, 150 (2005): 33. The debate
was common during the Victorian period.
72 Numerous works address the definition/semantics of empire and imperialism.
See, for example, Colin Newbury’s chapter on the semantics of imperialism and
influence in Michael Twaddle (ed.), Imperialism, the State, and the Third World
(London, 1992); Richard Koebner and Helmut Schmidt, Imperialism: The Story
and Significance of a Political Word, 1840–1960 (Cambridge, 1964); Ronald Robin-
son and John Gallagher, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History
Review, 6 (1953): 1–15; and Raymond Dummett, Gentlemanly Capitalism and
British Imperialism: The New Debate on Empire (London, 1999). Some have even
questioned whether or not there was a British Empire. See Ged Martin, ‘Was
There a British Empire?’ Historical Journal, 15 (1972): 562–569. What all of this
literature shows is the great elasticity of the words ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’ in
the past.
73 In this sphere, Niall Ferguson’s very public ruminations have surely created a
market for profitable debate. See his Empire: How Britain Made the Modern
World (London, 2004), and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
(London, 2004). The American titles of these two books reveal the publishers’
perception of American sensibilities; Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British
World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, and Colossus: The Price of America’s
Empire.
332 A. Jackson
74 Correlli Barnett, ‘Imperial Overstretch from Dr Arnold to Mr Blair’, RUSI
Journal 150, 4 (2005): 26–31.
75 Jeremy Black, ‘A Post-Imperial Power? Britain and the Royal Navy’, Orbis: A
Journal of World Affairs, 49 (2005): 353–365. In this unusual article, Black refers
to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as Dominions, not a designation
that really works in 2005.
76 J. Black, ‘A Post-Imperial Power? Britain and the Royal Navy’, 361.
77 These points were made in response to Barnett’s article. See A. Jackson, Letter,
RUSI Journal, 150 (2005): 10–11. A unique attachment to the former empire
stems from the fact that the monarch is still head of state in many independent
countries, as well as head of the Commonwealth, and the British High Court is
still the highest court of appeal in some countries.
Index

Abyssinia 34, 40, 212, 237 Austria 11, 12, 92, 190
Acheson, Dean 303
Aden 16, 102–3, 112, 121, 155–6, 170, Baghdad Pact 65–7, 105
172–3, 242, 245, 247–8, 305, 314, 316, Balfour, Arthur 18, 36–7, 113, 291
320, 322 Baltic States 31, 140
Admiralty 15, 19, 20, 35–40, 71–2, 75, 77, Bank of England 86, 184
81, 99, 111, 114, 116–19, 124, 126, Baring, E. 16
135–6, 138–44, 158, 181, 186–90, 242, BBC 228–9, 315, 319, 325
252–3, 255, 261–5, 269, 271, 273–5, Bean, Dr Charles 227
277, 279, 282 Beatty, David Earl 137
Afghan wars 11, 32, 75, 97, 154 Beaverbrook, Lord 223, 227–8
Africa, East 12, 55, 94, 101, 166, 213, 284, Belgium 122, 280
317 Bengal 93–4, 97, 210, 220, 245, 314
Africa, West 14, 54, 101, 201, 206, 209, Bennett, Sir Erik 315
213 Berlin, Treaty of 11, 199
Air Ministry 77, 81, 137 Bermuda 122, 127, 236, 240, 242, 258,
Alanbrooke, Lord 167 305, 318
Anglo-American–Japanese agreement 36 Bertie, Francis 19
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of Friendship 34, Bevin, Ernest 54–5, 60, 84
60 Black Sea 11, 99, 102, 126, 183, 187
Anglo-German Naval Agreement 39–40 Blair, Tony 55, 324–5
Anglo-Japanese Alliance 35–7, 77, 247 Board of Trade 5, 16, 56, 76, 83
Anglo-Japanese Treaty 136 Boer War 4, 18, 74–5, 96, 98, 184, 214,
Anglo-Russian Convention 22–4, 35 222–3, 225–6, 237–9
Anglo-Russian relations 14, 21–4 Bombay 94, 127
Anglo-Turkish Treaty 35 Bomber Command 159–60, 222
Antipodean Dominions 54, 59, 293 Bonaparte, Napoleon 178, 193
ANZUS Treaty 59 Borden, Robert 214, 227, 275, 278, 281–7,
Ardagh, Sir John 18–19 289–92
Asquith, Herbert 13, 18, 113, 274, 277–8, Botha, Lewis 286
283–5 Boustead, Hugh 211–13
Attlee, Clement 54, 84 Bray, Sir Denys 32
Australia 3–4, 15, 58–60, 64, 75, 78, British Army 3–4, 51, 91–105, 188, 190,
112–13, 115, 117–18, 121, 126, 133, 197, 199, 216, 222–3, 236–40, 247,
142–4, 158, 160–4, 171–2, 223, 228, 253–4, 270, 280, 283, 305, 315, 317–20,
236, 247, 251, 258, 261–2, 267, 269, 322
272–8, 284–6, 292, 307–8, 312–13 British Defence Co-ordination Committee
Australian Squadron 261, 265 51, 56, 66
Australian Station 118, 261–2 British India 11, 93, 215, 305
334 Index
British Indian Ocean Territory 305, 312,
316–17
British Pacific Fleet 143
British War Cabinet 286, 290
Brunei 172–3, 246, 306, 312, 317,
322
Bulgaria 12, 51, 182, 190
Burma 101–2, 163, 165, 199, 209, 213,
223, 239, 241, 245, 314
Butler, R.A. 85
Cairo 12, 16, 61, 97, 159, 266
Calcutta 94, 188, 205, 219
Canada 3–4, 14, 75, 133, 136, 160–4, 171,
184, 187, 200, 213–14, 223–4, 240, 244,
251–61, 267–9, 271–2, 274–5, 278,
281–9, 291–4
Cape Colony 75, 252, 262, 265
Cardwell, Edward 92, 105, 255
Caucasus 31–2, 34
Central Africa Rifles 208, 237
Central Treaty Organisation 308–9, 319
Ceylon 75, 102, 165, 211, 219, 236,
239–40, 242, 245, 309, 314, 322
Chamberlain, Austin 30, 32–3, 37, 74, 77
Chamberlain, Joseph 237, 264–9
Chamberlain, Neville 39, 40, 78–81, 139
Chanak 35, 247, 292–4, 296
Chatfield, Sir Ernle 79, 81–2, 135, 137,
141, 145
Chiefs of Staff 31, 32, 51, 54–6, 63–4, 66,
78–9, 83–5, 165, 306–7
Childers, Hugh 92, 105
China 12, 16, 20, 32–3, 35–8, 40–1, 63,
74, 102, 136, 139, 141, 143, 162, 182,
188, 191, 199, 201, 203, 207, 215, 239,
241–2
China Squadron 139
China Station 240–1, 273, 317
Christianity 198, 200–4, 206–9, 213,
215–16
Church Missionary Society 203–4, 208–9
Church of England 201, 203, 208
Churchill, Winston 32, 77–8, 81, 83, 155,
199, 225, 229, 277, 292
Clarendon, Lord 13–14, 180, 182
Clark, Alan 315–16
Clarke, G.S. 124–5
Cold War 52, 57–67, 120, 128, 134, 144,
164, 171, 192–3, 230, 245–8, 304,
306–11, 323–4
Colomb, Philip 202, 207–8, 256
Colonial Defence Committee 122, 124,
246, 259, 261–2, 265
Colonial Office 12, 14–16, 234–5, 242,
246, 252
Committee of Imperial Defence 6, 12, 19,
21, 30, 33, 36, 73, 78, 113, 116, 122,
124, 137–8, 159, 270, 274, 279
Commonwealth 51–3, 56–9, 62–4, 67–8,
84, 86, 102, 159–65, 167, 171–2, 247,
267, 286–7, 294, 304, 307–10, 314, 323
Commonwealth Air Training Plan 162–3
Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation 162
conscription 76, 101, 103, 200, 214, 224,
285–8
Constantinople 11–12, 18, 182, 242
Craigie, Robert 39–40
Cresswell, W.R. 273
Crimean War 1, 9–10, 74, 91–2, 95, 112,
124, 126, 220, 224, 252
Currie, Arthur 289
Currie, Phillip 14–15, 183
Curtis, Lionel 281, 287
Curzon, Lord George 17, 30–2, 35–6, 206
Cyprus 9, 15, 60, 65–6, 85, 166, 169, 172,
230, 236, 242, 245, 248, 305–6, 309,
314–15, 319–22
Dalton, Hugh 84
Deakin, Alfred 262, 270, 274
Defence Requirements Sub-Committee 33,
39, 79–81
Defence White Paper 87
Dennison, William 253
Department of Information 226–7
Diego Garcia 242, 316
Disraeli, Benjamin 11, 13, 15, 71, 256–7,
279
Dogras 94, 120
Dominions Office 218, 234
Durand, Sir Mortimer 16
Dutch East Indies 165, 171, 245
Dyer, Brigadier 100, 104
East India Company 91, 93, 183, 242
East Indies Station 240, 309
Eastern Fleet 245, 275
Eden, Anthony 62, 64, 85
Egypt 12, 16, 31, 34, 40, 54, 58–67, 75,
77, 84–6, 92, 97, 99, 102, 104–5, 121,
158–9, 167, 187, 214, 238, 241, 243,
247
Ellington, Sir Edward 79, 80
Empire Service 228–9
Europe 9–11, 16, 18, 20–4, 30–2, 36,
39–41, 51–3, 56–68, 73–4, 82–4, 87,
93–4, 96–7, 101, 103–6, 112–16, 117,

120, 122–3, 125, 127–9, 134, 136,
138–43, 157, 159, 162, 164, 168, 176,
178–81, 187–93, 188, 205, 218, 237,
241, 244–5, 251–5, 257–8, 261, 266,
271, 273, 275, 277–8, 280–1, 283, 291,
303–6, 309, 319, 223, 341
Europe, western 51, 53–60, 62, 104, 152,
164, 307–8, 314
European Economic Community 119, 303
Exchequer, Chancellors of 13, 32, 39, 71,
76–8, 82, 85–6, 114
Falklands 240, 244, 304–6, 318–19, 323
Far East Air Force 310, 313–14
Far East Fleet 310, 312–13
Fiji 103, 208, 236–7, 305
Fisher, Sir John 76, 79, 81, 116, 120, 124
Fisher, Sir Warren 72
Five Power Defence Arrangements 313–14
Fleet Air Arm 80, 243
Flying Squadron 114–15
Foreign Intelligence Committee 185–6
Foreign Office 5, 9–24, 30–41, 50–68, 73,
136, 226
Four Power Treaty 37, 136
France 12, 20–2, 35, 40–1, 51, 73, 76, 79,
85, 92, 101, 105, 118, 140, 142, 161,
176–9, 182–3, 190, 214, 237, 240, 242,
257, 264, 273, 278, 281–3, 288, 313
French Fleet 140
French Marine 141–2
Galloper 56, 58
Gan 314–15
Geneva conference 38, 138
George, Lloyd David 30, 35, 76, 283,
285–7, 289–90, 292
Germany 4, 12, 21–4, 31–5, 39–40, 50–1,
73–4, 78–80, 82–4, 103, 117, 264,
273–4, 280, 306
Gibraltar 95, 122, 127, 236, 240–2, 258,
306, 319
Gladstone, W.E. 11, 71, 73–4, 114–15,
225, 255
Glubb, Sir John 212–13
Godley, Sir Arthur 16–17
Gold Coast 94, 99, 236, 238, 241
Government Code & Cypher School 191
Granville, Earl of 13–14
Great Powers 9, 11, 20, 37, 39, 243, 252,
294
Greece 164, 168
Greene, W.C. 16
Grey, Earl 253
Index 335
Grey, Sir Edward 13–14, 19, 21–4, 36
Gurkhas 94, 210
Haldane, R.B. 13, 18, 75, 270–3, 278, 288
Halifax 99, 127, 240, 255, 258, 260, 271
Hamilton, George 16
Hankey, Sir Maurice 79, 81–2, 124, 137,
290
Harcourt, Sir William 13, 76
Hardinge, Charles 14, 18, 182, 190
Hart, Liddell 54
Hitler, Adolph 158, 162, 193, 294
HMS ships 127, 201, 225, 240, 244,
312–13, 317, 319–21
home defence 19, 80, 92, 157, 162, 165,
171
Home Office 181, 187, 192
Huddlestone, Trevor 203
Hughes, Sam 282, 284–5
Hughes, William 284, 286, 288–90
Hutton, Edward 268
Imperial Conferences 36, 78, 137, 158,
161, 274
Imperial Federation League 258, 262–3
Imperial General Staff 52, 79, 167, 272
Imperial Japanese Navy 20, 81, 136,
139–41, 235, 314
Imperial War Cabinet 286, 289
Imperial War Conference 286, 289
India 3–4, 12–17, 21, 31–5, 51, 54, 58, 75,
91, 93–103, 111–12, 115–16, 121, 134,
139, 142, 144, 153–4, 156–8, 163,
165–6, 180–92, 198–200, 203–4, 206,
210–11, 213, 215–16, 220, 223, 227–9,
234, 236, 238, 241–2, 247–8, 251–7,
261, 274, 276, 287, 295, 307–8
India Office 16–17, 33, 93
Indian Air Force 163
Indian Army 3, 93–4, 99, 101, 154, 185,
188, 199, 210–11, 213, 215, 222, 224,
239, 245, 247–8, 264, 307
Indian Civil Service 215, 221–2
Indian Intelligence Branch 185–7
Indian Mutiny 74, 93, 100, 197–8, 206,
216, 238
Indo-China 41, 59, 165, 245
Inskip, Sir Thomas 81–2, 86–7
Integrated Air Defence System 313
Iraq 35, 54, 64–6, 77, 102, 105, 153–6,
191, 212, 214, 241, 306, 314, 316,
321–2
Ireland 31, 102, 197–8, 224, 227, 229, 280,
292–4
336 Index
Islam 34, 187, 199, 203, 206, 215
Istanbul 181, 183, 187
Italy 12, 34–5, 40, 51, 54, 82, 101, 141–2,
156, 159, 162, 178, 241, 245, 248
Jacobites 176–7
Japan 20–1, 30, 33–41, 50–1, 77–8, 105,
112, 121, 135, 138–43, 158, 162, 164,
172, 201, 203–4, 241, 243, 266, 273–4
Jellicoe, Lord 137
Jervois, W.F.D. 255–8, 261
Kabul 16, 31, 33, 154, 157
Kemal, Mustafa 34
Kenya 56, 84, 94, 102–4, 170, 230, 237,
240, 244–5, 247–8, 306, 312, 317,
321–2
Keyes, Sir Roger 135, 137
Keynes, John Maynard 76, 84
Khartoum 94, 97, 203, 225
Kilbracken, Lord 16
King, William Lyon Mackenzie 162,
292–5
King’s African Rifles 91, 94, 208–9, 211,
213, 237
Kipling, Rudyard 214, 219, 221, 226
Kitchener, Lord 97, 222, 225, 241, 271–3,
283–4
Korea 20–1, 59, 66, 103, 201–2, 209, 294
Korean War 85, 144
Lagos 14, 54–5, 84
Lansdowne 13–14, 19–21
Laurier, Wilfred 214, 264–75, 278, 282,
287
Law, Andrew Bonar 283, 285
Layard, Henry 181
League of Nations 31, 153, 291–2
Lend-Lease Act 83–4, 163
Liddell, Eric 203
Livingstone, David 206–7
London Missionary Society 203, 208
London Naval Conferences 38–9, 81, 138,
140
Macdonald, J. Ramsay 38
Macdonald, Sir John A. 214, 259–60,
262–4, 266, 268–9, 275, 279–80, 282,
292–3
McKenna, Reginald 76
Macmillan, Harold 85–6, 309
Madras 94, 210
Malaya 56, 59, 102–4, 158–9, 165,
169–73, 241, 245–6, 313, 322
Malayan Emergency 230, 238
Malta 112, 122, 127, 158–9, 172, 178, 236,
240–3, 245, 248, 258, 319
Manning, William 211
Masirah 242, 247, 315
Massey, William Ferguson 286–7, 289
Mauritius 236, 238–9, 242, 244–6, 305,
312, 314, 316, 321–2
Meade, Sir Robert 15
Mediterranean Fleet 34, 187, 240, 243, 248
MI5 188, 190, 192
Middle East 31, 34–5, 50–67, 84, 102,
104–5, 134, 136, 152, 155, 158–9, 164,
166–9, 171–2, 199, 212, 214–15, 234,
239, 243, 247–8, 284, 291, 306–8, 314,
316, 319
Military Intelligence Department 185–9
Miller, E.D. 277
Mills, Arthur 254
Mills Committee 114, 253, 255–6, 273
Milner, Sir Alexander 124, 226, 285
Milner, Sir Alfred 226, 285
Ministry of Information 218, 224, 227,
229–30
Mombasa 54–5, 101, 321
Montgomery, Bernard 52, 57
Montgomery, Bishop Henry 203–4
Montgomery, Field Marshal 201
Montgomery-Massingberd, Sir Archibald
79
Morley, John 21
Mountbatten, Louis 215, 245
Muslims 187, 199–200, 208–10, 212,
214–16
Napoleonic Wars 115, 178, 242
Nasser, Colonel 66–7, 85, 105, 214, 243
Naval Defence Acts 20, 72, 118, 254, 263
Naval Intelligence 75, 124, 126, 183
Naval Intelligence Department 185–6, 190
Navy League 221, 263
Nehru, J. 221–2
Nelson, Horatio 179, 243, 309
Netherlands, the 165, 177
New Brunswick 252, 254–5
New South Wales 252–3, 261, 313
New Zealand 3, 58–60, 75, 112, 117, 133,
142–4, 158, 160–1, 164, 172, 204,
208–9, 225, 237, 244, 251–5, 258,
261–2, 267, 269, 272, 275–7, 283,
285–6, 292, 307–8, 312–13, 323
Nicolson, Arthur 14, 23, 190
Nigeria 94, 101, 203, 209, 213, 322, 324
Nine Power Treaty 37, 40, 136

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 50–1,
55–7, 60, 63, 68, 120, 144, 172, 303–10,
314, 319, 320, 323
Northwest Frontier of India 97, 99, 153–7,
191, 210–11, 213, 235, 261
Nyasaland 94, 201, 208–9, 216
Oman 173, 241–2, 306, 312–13, 315–17,
321–2
Palestine 54, 77, 102–4, 153, 156, 166–7,
169, 212, 214, 222, 227, 247
Palmerston, Lord 10, 112, 114, 179–80,
255
Paris Peace Conference 31
Paris Peace treaty 31
Park, Keith 223
Pauncefote, Julian 15
Pearl Harbor 41, 143
Peking 18, 241
Persian Gulf 16–17, 33, 240, 241, 309–11,
313–14, 321, 324
Poland 31–2, 191
Political Warfare Executive 218
Protestant 197, 200, 209
Rajputs 94, 210
Reuter’s news agency 220, 226, 269
Rhodes, Cecil 222, 237
Rhodesia 172, 238, 244, 322
Roberts, Lord 96, 98, 226
Roman Catholic 197, 200, 205, 214
Rosebery, Lord 12–14, 181, 201, 258
Royal Air Force 2–4, 39, 77, 80, 144,
152–73, 199, 222, 228, 238–9, 241–7,
310–15, 319–22
Royal Australian Air Force 162–3, 171–2
Royal Australian Navy 117
Royal Flying Corp 161, 288
Royal Navy 2–4, 20, 28, 38–40, 50, 71, 91,
111–12, 115–19, 122–9, 133–45, 161–5,
178–80, 184, 186, 190, 199, 201–2, 207,
222, 256–8, 261, 263, 265, 273–5,
277–8, 284
Royal Navy South Atlantic Squadron
318
Royal West African Frontier Force 91,
94
Russell, Lord John 13–14, 180
Russia 9–12, 15, 19, 20–4, 31–40, 63, 73,
99, 105, 115, 124, 181–3, 186, 190, 199,
245–3, 257, 261, 264, 273, 287, 306–8,
323
Russo-Japanese War 21, 35, 238
Index 337
St. Petersburg 14, 16, 18, 21–2, 24, 35,
115, 123, 182, 187, 230
Salisbury, Lord 9, 11–19, 181, 183, 188,
199, 262
Sanderson, Thomas 14, 17
Sandys Defence Review 73, 309
Sargent, Sir Orme 52
Scotland Yard 184, 323
Secret Intelligence Service 188, 191–2
secret service 17–19, 178, 181, 188–91
Seeley, Sir John 199, 258
Selbourne, Lord 111
Shanghai 38, 192, 234, 246
Sierra Leone 75, 94, 236, 240, 306, 319,
322
Sikhs 94, 210, 215, 237
Simmonds, John 183–4
Simon, Sir John 38, 82
Singapore 36–8, 77–8, 81, 136–7, 142–3,
158–9, 161–2, 225, 229, 239, 241–3,
245, 293–4, 304, 306, 310–14, 316
Slessor, John 166
Smuts, Jan 227, 286–7
Snowden, Philip 78, 81, 124, 137, 290
Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts 201–4
Somaliland 94, 154–7, 211, 238, 245–6
Somers-Cocks, C.S. 16
South Africa 3, 20, 53, 58, 60, 92, 97–8,
101, 112, 121, 133, 142, 160–1, 203–4,
206, 224, 226, 238–9, 251, 269, 273,
281, 286, 292–4, 318–19
South African War 30, 121, 273
South China Sea 241, 317
South Pacific 15, 59, 103, 261
Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation 66,
172, 308
Soviet Navy 140, 164
Soviet Union 4, 53–4, 58, 64, 140, 152,
164, 167, 229
Spain 51, 156, 176–8
Special Operations Executive 245–6
Spithead 115, 123, 220
Stimson, Henry L. 38
Sudan 12, 75, 94, 97, 209, 211–13, 234,
241, 260–1, 293, 296
Sudan Defence Force 94, 212, 237
Suez Canal 34, 51, 55–6, 64–7, 85,
103–5, 158, 166, 168, 211, 226, 238,
245, 257
Suez Crisis 67, 85–6, 91, 144, 152, 230,
294, 304, 306, 308, 311
Suez, East of 38, 54, 103, 243, 245, 247–8,
305, 308, 310–14, 316–18, 321–2, 324
338 Index
Suez, West of 304, 318, 320
Sydney 123, 127, 219, 240, 278
Syria 15, 214
Tanganyika 94, 208, 240, 246
Tedder, Arthur 162, 166–7
Tehran 16–17
Ten Year Rule 78, 135
Third World Power 52, 56
Tokyo 16, 32, 34, 36, 39, 105
Treasury 5, 12–13, 16–17, 20, 30, 35–9,
56, 71–87, 99, 139, 144, 304, 311, 324
Treaty of Berlin 11, 199
Treaty of Versailles 37
Trenchard, Hugh 4, 102, 153–5, 157–8
Trinidad 236, 240
Tryon, George 261–2
Turkey 15, 34–5, 40, 105, 123, 161, 182,
190, 283, 319, 321
Two Power Standard 141, 263
Uganda 15, 94, 208–9, 244, 321–2, 324
United Nations 320, 323
United States 14, 20, 30, 35, 37, 40, 59,
63–4, 66, 77, 79, 81, 83–5, 105, 136,
142–3
United States Army 115, 123, 160
United States Navy 62, 135, 140–4
Universities Mission 207
Vansittart, Sir Robert 39, 79–80, 191
Versailles Peace Conference 234
Victoria 252, 261–2
Victoria, Queen 202, 220–1, 262
War Office 14–15, 19, 35, 37, 71, 75, 77,
81–2, 92, 96
War Propaganda Bureau 226
Washington 15, 20, 36, 38–41, 66, 84, 129,
136, 143, 181, 190, 226, 256
Washington Naval Agreements 162
Washington Naval Conference 37, 135–6,
138
Washington Treaty 129, 136–7, 256
Wavell, Archibald 215, 226
Wellington House 226, 271
West Indies 201, 206, 238, 240, 245, 318,
321
West Indies Squadron 139, 318
Western Front 101, 239, 283, 285, 287–8
Wilson, Harold 305, 311
Wolseley, Sir Garnet 96–7
Zulu 75, 96, 98, 121, 238