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did Britain have to let their empire go?

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  Quote Guess Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: did Britain have to let their empire go?
    Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 00:38
Were the british capable of maintaining their empire and was there any economic benefit to keeping the empire?

did they let it go due to WW2 and they did not feel they could conquer people after fighting the germans?
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Mughal e Azam View Drop Down
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 01:26
I think they were exhausted financially as well as just outright exhausted. You can only hustle on a treadmill for so long. As they said: "the sun never sets on the British Empire".

Eventually its outright exhaustion and tiredness.
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  Quote Guess Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 02:25
didn't the empire generate alot of profits for England? If not, why would they want it?
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  Quote snowybeagle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 06:36
Originally posted by Guess

didn't the empire generate alot of profits for England? If not, why would they want it?
I'm sure it did, but at the expense of the locals.  Once the locals demand a greater share of their own produce, it wasn't financially viable for the Brits as they'd not be able to fund the military presence necessary.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 08:38
The WWII ended any hopes of the Empire. THe Yanks made it clear that the empire had to go, esp the Roosevelt administration. I mean pretty hard to argue that you are fighting for "freedom" and then have half the world as a colony.
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  Quote Kevin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 10:22
Originally posted by Sparten

The WWII ended any hopes of the Empire. THe Yanks made it clear that the empire had to go, esp the Roosevelt administration. I mean pretty hard to argue that you are fighting for "freedom" and then have half the world as a colony.


True but Empire's become expensive especially when a power is facing a financial crisis.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 11:53

It shouldn't be overlooked that the first steps to dismantling the Empire as an Empire took place well before WW2, with the 1931 Statute of Westminster, formally creating the Commonwealth, being perhaps the best symbolic date.

There truly was a strong hope from that point on through the forties and fifties for creating the Commonwealth as a bloc of independent states symbolically linked through recognition of a common Head of State, and more practically by preferential trading agreements and keeping sterling as a reserve currency.

It kind of partly worked out in that the Commonwealth still exists as a meaningful group of countries with at least some common standards, but it didn't work out as fully as hoped, primarily because of countries preferring trading agreements with local partners (including establishment of the EEC), and partly because some of the newly independent states degenerated into racism and dictatorship.  

By the majority of the population in the forties and fifties however, the move towards independence for the remaining colonies was basically just seen as what ought to happen. It was a moral issue rather than an economic one.
 
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  Quote Caoimhe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 22:12
From a moral point of view yes. Imperialism being a reprehensible ideology for the most part.

However Britain had to let it go also for economic reasons. WWII basically bankrupted them.  In Greece (and although not a colony) the British had to ask the Americans to take over their post war duties because they could not afford to keep them up themselves. Other places too.

Also it was not viable in the post war world.

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
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  Quote Parnell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2008 at 22:33
After fighting to Liberate Europe, and then having the cheek to ask Russia to ensure the nations she marched through be given their freedom, the idea of Britain having a massive Empire made them look kinda ridiculous.
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  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Mar-2008 at 00:56
If the British were capable of maintaining it they would have.  If out of their benevolence they decided to end their tangible imperialism they would have done it all at once, don't you think instead of incrementally over 40 odd years?

Sorry if I am being a little simplistic here.
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Mar-2008 at 10:08
Originally posted by Zagros

If the British were capable of maintaining it they would have.  If out of their benevolence they decided to end their tangible imperialism they would have done it all at once, don't you think instead of incrementally over 40 odd years?

Sorry if I am being a little simplistic here.
 
Apology accepted Smile
 
The process had to be a longish one since not all the colonies and other territories were at the same stage of economic/political development, and also WW2 got in the way. It started in 1931 (perhaps earlier with the Irish Free State) and the change of status of the truly colonised territories (Australia, Canad, etc.) moved on through India (where what held things up for years was the inability to find a solution to the Hindu-Muslim division, and where also WW2 intervened). In a little over 15 years from the end of ww2 the present situation was more or less established - with a few hiccups like the unilateral declaration of independence in present-day Zimbabwe.
 
So it took a little more than 30 years, with a world war in the middle. In terms of achieving such a massive political change reasonably peaceably - apart from India and Pakistan - that seems pretty fast to me.
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Mar-2008 at 11:18
Yeah I agree its a moral issues especially after some actions in an attempt to keep the empire i.e. Kenya, so eventually I think Britian would have had to sucombe to international pressure anyway, I mean does any country have that many colinies any more?
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  Quote Peteratwar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Mar-2008 at 09:15
Britain
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  Quote Al Jassas Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Mar-2008 at 09:58
Those who think that all Brits wanted an empire are wrong, most whigs supported American independence, Adam Smith was strongly against colonialism or any notion of an empire and he supported giving the US independence and many radicals of the liberal party also argued strongly against keeping an empire and they achieved success when Canada was created in 1851. Of course India was another issue altogether but even there some still supported leaving it. After the disaster of WWI which exhausted Britain so much, the rest of the political elite coupled with the newly enfranchised masses and the sharp rise of the labour party all contributed to the process of decolonization which began before WWII but was accelerated by it.
 
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  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Mar-2008 at 15:36

But why end 200 years of colonialism and imperium?  It had proven so fruitful afterall, the reason in a nutshell stemmed froma realisation that a growing sense of nationalism and self determination among subjugated peoples could no longer be managed and a 'tactical withdrawal' had to be made.   the French did not have such foresight or deleuded themselves into thinking that they could indefinitely control the lesser peoples of places like Algeria and Indo-China.  How wrong they were, eh?

 
 
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2008 at 13:29
ww2 gave a taste of the types of war that could follow, in the face of modern war machines, defending an empire from threats without, let alone threats within was an impossible task into for future for little old britain.
It was also vital in order for britains prosperity, we suffered various turmoils in the seventies and eighties, finding our new role but the jobs been done now, and our stars are rising again.
All european powers had to disband there empires during this time, that period was over and it was crystal clear to all concerned (some sooner than others)
Even the mighty russians caved in eventually, now if we can just ditch the eu i would be thrilled.
long live the king of bhutan
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  Quote Zagros Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Mar-2008 at 19:20
That's a valid perspective too, in my opinion.
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  Quote Mughal e Azam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Mar-2008 at 06:56
The British Empire wouldn't have been reduced to what it is today unless they could manage it. All other reasons for dismantling the Empire are the "niceties" and "good sounding" words spoken to make people comfortable with themselves.



Edited by Mughaal - 27-Mar-2008 at 06:57
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  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Mar-2008 at 11:00
It's true that if nothing had changed nothing would have changed.
 
That doesn't get you very far however.
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  Quote longshanks31 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Mar-2008 at 13:46
The facts are evident, the A bomb spoke.
Defend a global empire against that if you can, we struggled against ships and planes and barely scraped through by the skin of our teeth.
Trying to keep the empire would have been very foolish.
And luckily we are not.
Now we have a wonderfull commenwealth, much more usefull and sustainable.
If it was possible to keep the empire and make it work for us im very sure it would have been kept.
As we know however that was not the reality of the time.
It was the greatest empire of its kind, but at the end of the day nothing lasts forever, religions, royal households, empires even entire species and the earth itself, everything has a shelf life, including the shelf.
long live the king of bhutan
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