Empire Lost: Britain, the Dominions and the Second World War

by Andrew Stewart

  I am indebted to Mr David Steeds who kindly read various draft versions of this work and his exhaustive historical knowledge produced many illuminating and incisive comments and much welcomed advice. Dr Robert Foley, Dr Helen McCartney, Dr Ashley Jackson, Dr Chris Baxter and Dr Kent Fedorowich gave much-needed encouragement when spirits flagged. I am of course thankful to Professor Mike Dockrill, Professor Andrew Lambert, Professor Saki Dockrill,

  Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor Brian Bond and Dr Tim Moreman in the Department of War Studies and Professor Matt Uttley and Dr Stuart Griffin in the Defence Studies Department, both part of King's College London, for their support during my undergraduate studies, doctoral study and subsequent academic career. Thanks also to James Burkes, Chris Roe, Adam Simmons, Daniel Alford and Dr Mark Skidmore whose friendship has been much appreciated. There were many other friends and acquaintances that have kindly 'lent an ear' on occasion and to them I am also grateful. Bob and Joy Wilson provided the most convivial surroundings in East Hanney, Oxfordshire in which to write this book. Ben Hayes, senior editor at Hambledon Continuum, provided inspiration and advice when it was needed—my sincere thanks. Penelope Whitson oversaw the final progress of the manuscript to its culmination.

  My fiancée Joanne endured the writing of this book and sacrificed a great deal to support its completion—thank you always. This book is, however, dedicated to my parents. They have supported my scholarly endeavours throughout these many years always without hesitation despite the sometimes less obvious path that I chose to follow. None of this would have been possible without them.

  The analysis, opinions and conclusions expressed or implied are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, the UK Ministry of Defence or any other government agency. Any errors of fact are the responsibility of the author.

  The Great Experiment

  The inter-war period marked the first serious attempts to provide a scholarly answer to the question 'what were the Dominions?'1 Although many ideas were put forward, there was, however, an obvious sense of reluctance about precise definitions; during a parliamentary debate in 1921, when David Lloyd George asked for an explanation he was told that to provide one would be dangerous.2 A decade later, a leading Australian politician expressed what had become an increasingly familiar and commonly held view when he compared his own country's connection with Britain to that of a family relationship. As such he did not 'want the relations of myself and my children to be determined by rules written in a book, to which each of us must refer to discover who is right and who is wrong'.3 At the same time, there also existed a sense of profound conviction that the Empire had its basis on a higher level. Lord Curzon believed that it was one of the instruments used by Providence for the benefit of mankind. Lord Rosebery, speaking to students at Edinburgh on the British Empire, saw its achievements being directed by human hands and minds but was also certain even the 'most heedless and most cynical must see the finger of the Divine' in its long history. Lord Blanesburgh, speaking publicly in January 1933, had argued that it was essential to preserve the Commonwealth of Nations as 'a civilizing force', one which would if needed be 'the final protector of Western civilization'.4 Lionel Curtis, one of the leading Imperial thinkers, thought that the British Empire and Commonwealth would eventually evolve into a federation in which the British government would provide the central authority; once again, he believed that this would bring not only order but spiritual fulfilment.5

  In the early days of colonial governments the Parliament at Westminster was the supreme legislative authority for all British possessions. It had the authority and jurisdiction to legislate and did so for every part of the British Empire. The refusal of settlers in what became the United States of America to recognize the right of the Westminster body to impose taxation upon them when they had their own legislature which had the power to, and did, tax them ultimately led to the American revolution and the end of the first British Empire. The catalyst for the Dominions' creation was, however, John Lambton, more commonly known as Lord Durham, who was sent to what was then termed as 'the Canadas' in 1838 to investigate two rebellions of the previous year and produced, by way of response the following year, his detailed and celebrated 'Report on the Affairs of British North America'. In his view the colonists were capable of having an elected legislature, making their own laws and generally governing themselves, in short a modified form of responsible government with a legislative union of Upper Canada, Lower Canada and the Maritime Provinces. The 'British North American Act' became law on 1 July 1867 and with it a Dominion under the name of Canada was legally established, a confederation of several Canadian provinces agreed upon by Canadian statesmen. This, at least in part, was intended to help safeguard against lingering hostility from south of the border where a Bill had been introduced into Congress proposing that Canada should be made part of the United States. A federated Australia followed although not for over 30 years; 1 January 1901 marked the establishment of 'The Commonwealth of Australia', the end of a process begun in the 1850s when the parliaments of New South Wales and Victoria had been set up by Acts passed in London. New Zealand had formally become a British possession in 1840, as part of New South Wales, a separate colony the following year and then had gained self-government in 1856 with a constitution modelled on Westminster. In 1901 it was approached to enter the Commonwealth of Australia but declined and six years later it was recognized in its own right as a Dominion. For the purposes of this study Cape Colony, Natal and Transvaal joining, officially, in May 1910 with the Orange Free State to create the Union of South Africa was the final step in this developmental process.

  There were many advocates who supported such moves. The great British radical Joseph Chamberlain had told the House of Commons in London in 1900 that relations with the self-governing colonies depended 'entirely on their free will and absolute consent'. At the 1902 Colonial Conference his appeal for integration was sober and serious and his eloquence did not conceal his belief in the need to re-examine Britain's Imperial organization and how it worked. As he told his peers at Westminster, the time had come to tell the visiting statesmen that their help was needed. '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.'6 The conference held five years later was designated 'Imperial' rather than 'Colonial', and a new word entered the political dictionaries as it was agreed that the term 'Dominion' would in future be used instead of 'self-governing colonies'. This change in nomenclature was intended to help remove any sense of inferiority, and had a generally positive effect. The eventual outcome of this meeting was something approaching an organized system for collecting, analysing and disseminating information, allocating resources and pursuing a comprehensive grand strategy.7 At the 1911 Imperial Conference this understanding was first tested as the British foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, warned the visiting Dominion leaders about Germany's European intentions and what, if they proved successful, this would mean for the British Empire. The message was now spread that if the centre were to collapse their future would be in jeopardy, and for the first time the Dominions had been 'initiated into the secrets of the foreign policy being pursued'.8

  The Dominions' subsequent war efforts made it clear they were 'states that were in the process of becoming nations'.9 In August 1914 the British government announced that it intended to defend Belgium's recently violated neutrality. Although this committed it to war with Germany, none of the Dominions hesitated in offering their broadly unconditional backing of the decision. This support came despite a period during which a number of senior Dominion figures had expressed growing anxieties about their relationship with London. Few doubts existed within the British government, however, that Dominion assistance would be offered.10 With large populations of, in many cases, only recently arrived British settlers, emotional ties and moral concerns about t
he wider implications of German actions provided obvious stimuli for participation.11 At the beginning of the conflict the British Empire covered some 13 million square miles, within which there were nearly 500 million inhabitants. From this total the four white Dominions alone provided over 1,309,000 men, sending troops to fight not just in France but to every front in which fighting took place, from Samoa to Siberia. Vimy, Gallipoli and Delville Wood were just some of the celebrated battles in which the Dominion forces played a prominent part. New Zealand alone voluntarily sent about 20 per cent of its male population abroad. And with such a high level of involvement casualties were proportionately large, with 150,000 Dominion troops dead or missing by the conflict's conclusion. Australia, with a total population of only about five million people, suffered more casualties than the United States.12

  Most scholars agree the war produced confusing signals about the Empire's future for those who fought it; some saw greater cohesion, others divergence.13 The horrendous casualty figures certainly placed enormous strains on the unity of the wartime coalition. Lloyd George's summons in spring 1917 for the Dominions' leaders to visit London produced high drama, confusion and false hopes, both at the time and during the post-war years. To federationists such as the members of The Round Table it seemed the great day was finally at hand. The then British Prime Minister David Lloyd George publicly transformed the discussions with Dominion leaders into what became styled as an 'Imperial War Cabinet', but this was misleading. There was intimate consultation as the Dominion leaders joined their British colleagues for 14 Cabinet meetings. But it remained only 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 promoted it to a full-blown Imperial War Conference. Through 15 formal sessions those at the table discovered first-hand that even when the British 'family' lined up shoulder to shoulder to fight a titanic struggle the idea of 'Imperial Defence' was still a complicated one. The Australian leader W. M. 'Billy' Hughes did not arrive until mid-April; he was delayed by an acrimonious general election fought mainly over the question of conscription for overseas service. Louis Botha was convinced that his fellow Dominion leaders would be 'a damned nuisance' getting in the way of a busy British government and decided not to attend at all, remaining in South Africa to make sure the fractious Union stayed in the war. He sent in his place a minister who would remain a central figure in the British Empire's subsequent development, General Jan Christian Smuts. Joining them were William Ferguson Massey from New Zealand and Robert Borden from Canada.14

  Just in time for the Empire to fight the grim attritional battles of 1917, this Imperial War Conference produced the political commitment Lloyd George needed. Dominion power added a vital increment to British economic and military strength everywhere. But practical experience sparked more movement in arrangements for Imperial Defence. At the spring meeting 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 pressing to allow them to sit down and formally adjust 'the constitutional relations 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 Commonwealth' with a right to 'an adequate voice in foreign policy' and to 'effective arrangements for continuous consultation in all important matters of common Imperial concern'. 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. Round Table insiders such as Curtis soon realized that cooperation in Imperial Defence was only being pushed forward by sheer military necessity, and this was promoting Dominion nationalism and sense of identity at least as strongly as any common imperial identity.15

  Post-war analysts focused closely on the constitutional questions raised by this public declaration. For the first time it had defined the Dominions as 'autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth' who had supported the British war only as a result of 'mutual consultation'. The formal use of the new term 'Commonwealth' sparked great attention despite Lord Rosebery having pointed the way at a speech in Adelaide over 20 years beforehand.16 The New Zealand leader saw it as a major step towards an Imperial Parliament. The Resolution in fact turned out to be a promise by the British to take more seriously Dominion demands for a voice in return for sharing the burden, and not a Dominion pledge to commit more closely to any formal imperial machinery. The British had to make such a promise; the nature of the war dictated it with the rapidly deteriorating military position. The authorities in London needed to placate the concerns of the Dominion leaders who had temporarily relocated to the Empire's capital and help them find some relief from the growing criticism they faced back at home about an increasingly unpopular war. With its formal description of what had previously been a sometime vague relationship, as Curtis and his cohorts had feared, the resolution appeared to ensure that the Dominions would approach their future political dealings with Britain in a different manner. In the Canadian case it was said that this agreement was seen as signalling that the Dominion had reached full nationhood within the Empire. One of the most recent volumes on the subject is no doubt right to conclude that four themes in the end shaped the Great War for the Dominions: their military and economic contributions and the price they paid for both; divisions in public opinion about the war; the central direction of the war; the question of status. By 1918 'the coalition of the usually willing drove to total victory—but then faced the issue of where to go next'.17

  Following the war's end, the members of the wartime alliance lost no time in demonstrating how they intended to use their newly secured status. Resolution IX had stated that foreign policy would no longer be made solely by Whitehall but, instead, would be based upon 'continuous consultation'.18 And for the peace conferences that followed the war's end, despite some reluctance by Lloyd George, who had first invited them to London, the right to separate Dominion representation was secured. As a consequence, for the first time, each attending delegate signed the official documents on behalf of his own government. Smuts believed this to be a critical development, equal status had been affirmed by the very fact that Dominion and British statesmen had been present together but at the same time separately.19 Hostility from the Dominions about the British government's response to the 'Chanak Crisis' in 1922 showed that pre-war security guarantees could no longer be counted upon. Indeed, as the again separate signing of the Locarno Treaty three years later emphasized, each of the Dominion governments was now prepared to exercise to the full the autonomy from British policy it felt it enjoyed.20

  As important as the decisions reached by the politicians was the process upon which this radical experiment was grounded, the machinery of government that would oversee its management. A pledge phrased in very general terms at the 1907 Conference by the then colonial secretary, Lord Elgin, and given largely in deference to calls from the overseas politicians present, confirmed that the British government would create a governmental body to deal exclusively with the Dominions. Much of the impetus for this move came from the knowledge that many Dominions' statesmen had grown to dislike having to deal with the Colonial Office (CO), the long-established Whitehall department that oversaw relations with them. Alfred Deakin, Australia's second prime minister, was typical in his belief that the department had 'a certain impenetrability, a certain remoteness, a certain weariness of people much pressed with affairs and greatly overburdened, whose natural desire is to say "kindly postpone this; do not press this; do not trouble us; what does it matter. We have enough to do already?".'21 Post-conference, a reorganization was duly undertaken and three divisions were created within the CO, one of which was to be solely responsible for administering t
he relationship with the Dominions.22 Calls continued both at home and abroad for further reforms to be carried out. During the years immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities with the Central Powers within Whitehall there was certainly a mounting sense of interest in the Dominions. The CO even found its dominant role challenged by both the Foreign Office (FO) and the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID).23 A complete re-allocation of ministerial responsibilities and the creation of an entirely separate Dominions' department was suggested at one point but ultimately there was scant support for such proposals.24

  The experiences of the First World War highlighted the continued need for changes to be made to the way in which the Anglo-Dominion alliance functioned but both wartime governments steadfastly rejected the need for any separate administrative body. Even the more modest suggestion that the title of colonial secretary might be altered to encompass a reference to the Dominions was roundly dismissed. One of the most significant post-war catalysts was the inability or unwillingness of successive governments in London to consult the Dominions over vital foreign policy decisions.25 This had caused mounting tensions, most notably in 1922 during the dispute between the British and Turkish governments discussed earlier.26 The disagreements which this caused were not the only source of complaint; Ramsay MacDonald's first Labour government's recognition of the Soviet Union in 1924, without any prior discussion with the Dominions, caused great upset. But with the announcement in November of the same year that Leopold Amery was to become colonial secretary in the new Conservative government, a substantial change in the relationship would not be long in coming. In accepting the position Amery had stipulated to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin that he 'should be allowed to create a new and entirely separate office to deal with the Dominions'. The new secretary of state had long been a critic of, amongst other things, the CO's continuing responsibility for Dominion affairs and the manner in which it managed relations with the Imperial partners. As far as Amery was concerned the essential point to be borne in mind was that 'the Dominion and Colonial work are essentially different in character, as different as the work of the Foreign Office from that of the Admiralty. The Dominions work is entirely political and diplomatic. The Colonial work is administrative and directive. The one calls for great insight and infinite tact. The other for initiative and drive.'27 His argument in fact called for London to make it far more apparent that it held its dealing with the Dominion governments to be 'wholly different in character from the administration of the dependent Empire', and he called for the relationship to be formally placed on an equal level.28