Ghosts of Empire

by Kwasi Kwarteng

  15 Collis, Trials in Burma, pp. 208–9.

  16 Ibid., p. 212.

  17 Solomon, ‘Saya San and the Burmese Rebellion’, pp. 212, 210.

  18 Sarkisyanz, Manuel, ‘Messianic Folk-Buddhism as Ideology of Peasant Revolts in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Burma’, Review of Religious Research, vol. 10, no. 1, Autumn 1968, pp. 32–8, at p. 35.

  19 Taylor, Robert H., The State in Burma, London, 1987, p. 203.

  20 Hyam, Ronald, Britain’s Declining Empire: Decolonization 1918–1968, Cambridge, 2006, p. 82.

  21 BL, MSS Eur E 362/5, T. L. Hughes, Memoirs, pp. 2–10.

  22 BL, MSS Eur E 362/2, A. G. Bottomley, Recollections of last days in Burma, p. 3.

  23 BL, MSS Eur E 362/3, Sir Arthur Bruce, Memoirs, pp. 30, 32, 46.

  24 BL, MSS Eur E 362/10, B. R. Pearn, Memoirs, p. 15.

  25 BL, MSS Eur F 169/20, Sir Hubert Rance, ‘The Memoirs and Personal Papers of Major General Sir Hubert Rance’.

  26 Charney, Michael W., A History of Modern Burma, Cambridge, 2009, p. 57.

  27 BL, MSS Eur E 362/10, B. R. Pearn, Memoirs, pp. 1–10.

  28 BL, MSS Eur F 169/20, Sir Hubert Rance, Papers.

  29 DNB.

  30 BL, MSS Eur E 215/1–2, Dorman Smith papers, letter from Leo Amery to Reginald Dorman-Smith, 1 December 1942; letter from Leo Amery to Reginald Dorman-Smith, 29 December 1942.

  31 BL, MSS Eur E 362/5, T. L. Hughes, Memoirs, p. 57.

  32 Gilbert, Martin, Churchill: A Life, London, 1991, p. 734.

  33 BL, MSS Eur E 362/3, Sir Arthur Bruce, Memoirs, p. 71.

  34 Ibid., pp. 5, 4.

  35 Maung Htin Aung, A History of Burma, New York, 1967, p. 269.

  36 Silverstein, J. (ed.), The Political Legacy of Aung San, rev. edn, Ithaca, New York, 1993, pp. 78–9.

  37 BL, MSS Eur E 362/5, T. L. Hughes, p. 41; MSS Eur E 362/3, Sir Arthur Bruce, p. 79.

  38 BL, MSS Eur E 362/5, T. L. Hughes, p. 41; MSS Eur E 362/3, Sir Arthur Bruce, p. 84.

  39 BL, MSS Eur E 362/18, Sir John Wise, Memoirs, pp. 4, 52.

  40 Ibid., p. 49.

  41 BL, MSS Eur F 169/20, Sir Hubert Rance, Papers.

  42 BL, MSS Eur E 362/7/1, Philip Nash, Memoirs, p. 39.

  43 Ibid., appendix, letter from Hubert Rance to Pethick-Lawrence, 13 November 1946.

  44 BL, MSS Eur E 362/8, Lord Ogmore, Memoirs, ch. 4, pp. 2–3.

  45 DNB.

  46 BL, MSS Eur E 362/2, A. G. Bottomley, ‘Recollections of Last Days in Burma’, p. 9; MSS Eur E 362/18, Sir John Wise, Memoirs, p. 47.

  47 BL, MSS Eur E 362/8, Lord Ogmore, Memoirs, ch. 4, p. 4.

  48 Ibid., ch. 6, pp. 3–5.

  49 Ibid., p. 12.

  50 BL, MSS Eur F 169/20, Sir Hubert Rance, Papers; MSS Eur E 362/7/1, Philip Nash, Memoirs, p. 110.

  51 BL, MSS Eur E 362/3, Sir Arthur Bruce, Memoirs, p. 100.

  52 Time, ‘Strength through Weakness’, 5 March 1965.

  53 Sargent, Inge, Twilight over Burma, Honolulu, 1994, p. xi.

  54 Time, ‘Strength through Weakness’.

  55 Daily Telegraph obituary, 6 December 2002.

  56 Turrell, Robert V., ‘Conquest and Concession: The Case of the Burma Ruby Mines’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, 1988, pp. 141–63, at p. 144.

  57 The Times, ‘Blood rubies bankroll Burmese Junta’, 30 September 2007.

  58 Time, ‘Burma’s Faceless Leaders’, 1 October 2007.

  59 See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12362745.

  60 BL, MSS Eur E 362/8, Lord Ogmore, Memoirs, ch. 6, pp. 2–3.

  Chapter 11: Kitchener: An Imperial Hero

  1 Magnus, Philip, Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist, London, 1958, new edn 1968, p. 15.

  2 Pollock, John, Kitchener, London, 2001, p. xxi.

  3 Ibid., p. 12.

  4 Warner, Philip, Kitchener: The Man behind the Legend, London, 1985, p. 7.

  5 Pollock, Kitchener, p. 16; DNB.

  6 Pollock, Kitchener, p. 12.

  7 Shepperd, Alan, Sandhurst: The Royal Military Academy, London, 1980, p. 64.

  8 Pollock, Kitchener, p. 19.

  9 Ibid., p. 19.

  10 Magnus, Kitchener, p. 23.

  11 Sandes, E. W. C., The Royal Engineers in Egypt and the Sudan, London, 1937, p. 510.

  12 TNA, PRO 30/57/1, Kitchener papers.

  13 Ibid., letter from Herbert Kitchener to Sir R. Biddulph, 2 August 1882.

  14 Churchill, Winston S., The River War, London, 1899, new edn 1997, pp. 64–5.

  15 Pollock, Kitchener, pp. 71–2.

  16 TNA, PRO 30/57/6, Kitchener papers, Major H. H. Kitchener, ‘The Fall of Khartoum’, 14 February 1885.

  17 Slatin, Rudolf, Fire and Sword in the Sudan: A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes 1879–1895, London, 1896, new edn 1897, p. 55.

  18 Churchill, The River War, p. 12.

  19 TNA, PRO 30/40, Sir John Ardagh’s papers, ‘The insurrection of the False Prophet, 1881–1883’, c. 1883.

  20 Churchill, The River War, p. 16.

  21 Ibid., p. 17.

  22 Raugh, Harold E., The Victorians at War: An Encyclopedia of British Military History, Santa Barbara, 2004, p. 166.

  23 DNB.

  24 TNA, PRO 30/57/12, ‘General Report on the Sudan, 1890’, Intelligence Report for the War Office, Cairo, 30 December 1890.

  25 Beatty, Charles, His Country was the World: A Study of Gordon of Khartoum, London, 1954, p. 215.

  26 Churchill, The River War, p. 29.

  27 TNA, PRO 30/57/6, Kitchener papers, Major H. H. Kitchener, ‘The Fall of Khartoum’, 14 February 1885.

  28 Churchill, The River War, p. 39.

  29 TNA, PRO 30/57/6, ‘The Fall of Khartoum’.

  30 Ibid.

  31 Ibid.

  32 Slatin, Fire and Sword, p. 228.

  33 Ibid., p. 233.

  34 Churchill, The River War, p. 48.

  35 TNA, PRO 30/57/12, ‘General Report on the Sudan, 1890’.

  36 TNA, FO 633/86, Cromer papers, ‘The Reconquest of Sudan: October 1895–September 1898’, pp. 1, 3.

  37 TNA, PRO 30/57/9, letter from Sir Evelyn Baring in Cairo to the Marquess of Salisbury, 9 February 1892, p. 24.

  38 Ibid., pp. 24–5.

  39 Pollock, Kitchener, pp. 59, 63–4.

  40 Ibid., p. 76.

  41 TNA, PRO 30/57/13, Kitchener papers, ‘Intelligence Reports, 1890–1899’, Intelligence Report, August 1894.

  42 TNA, FO 633/86, Cromer, ‘The Reconquest of Sudan’, p. 9.

  43 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

  44 Steevens, G. W., With Kitchener to Khartoum, London, 1898, new edn 1990, p. 45.

  45 Ibid., p. 51.

  46 TNA, PRO 30/57/9, Kitchener papers, letter from Sir Evelyn Baring to the Marquess of Salisbury, 9 February 1892, p. 24.

  47 Churchill, The River War, p. 193.

  48 Steevens, With Kitchener, p. 282.

  49 Churchill, The River War, p. 206.

  50 TNA, FO 633/86, Cromer, ‘The Reconquest of Sudan’, p. 30.

  51 Steevens, With Kitchener, p. 301.

  52 TNA, PRO 30/57/16, Kitchener papers, letter from Queen Victoria to Lord Kitchener, 24 March 1899.

  53 TNA, PRO 30/57/15, Kitchener papers, New Penny Magazine, Saturday 26 November 1898.

  54 TNA, PRO 30/57/16, Kitchener papers, letters from Queen Victoria to Lord Kitchener, 24 June and 17 November 1899; telegram from Queen Victoria to Lord Kitchener, 26 July 1899.

  55 Steevens, With Kitchener, pp. 325–6.

  56 Cromer, Earl of, Political and Literary Essays 1908–1913, 1st Series, London, 1913, ‘The Government of Subject Races’, p. 15.

  57 Ibid., p. 17.

  58 Ibid., pp. 27–30.

  59 Magnus, Kitchener, p. 450.

  Chapter 12: ‘The Finest Body of Men’

  1 Warburg, Gabriel, The Sudan under Wingate, London, 1971, p. 2.

  2 Keun, Odette, A Foreigner Looks at the British Sudan, London, 1930, p. 53.


  3 Jackson, H. C., Sudan Days and Ways, London, 1954, pp. 24–5.

  4 DNB.

  5 Wingate, Sir Ronald, Wingate of the Sudan, London, 1955, p. 45.

  6 Steevens, G. W., With Kitchener to Khartoum, London, 1898, new edn 1990, p. 64.

  7 Daly, M. W., The Sirdar: Sir Reginald Wingate and the British Empire in the Middle East, Philadelphia, 1997, pp. 3–4.

  8 Warner, Philip, Kitchener: The Man behind the Legend, London, 1985, p. 100.

  9 MacMichael, Sir Harold, The Sudan, London, 1954, pp. 102–3.

  10 TNA, FO 373/5/20, ‘Handbook of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’, handbooks prepared under the direction of the Historical Section of the Foreign Office, No. 107, London, 1919, p. 59.

  11 MECA, Bowman papers, diary entry dated 10 November 1911.

  12 Vansittart, Lord, The Mist Procession: The Autobiography of Lord Vansittart, London, 1958, p. 91.

  13 Warburg, Sudan, p. 81.

  14 Symes, Sir Stewart, Tour of Duty, London, 1946, p. 213.

  15 Cromer, Earl of, Political and Literary Essays, 2nd Series, London, 1914, ‘Egypt and the Sudan’, p. 224.

  16 Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., ‘The Sudan Political Service: A Profile in the Sociology of Imperialism’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 1982, pp. 21–48, at p. 27.

  17 Collins, Robert, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, African Affairs, vol. 71, no. 284, July 1972, pp. 293–303, at p. 296.

  18 Collins, Robert O., and Deng, Francis M., The British in the Sudan 1898–1956: The Sweetness and the Sorrow, London, 1984, p. 61; Warburg, Sudan, p. 84.

  19 Symes, Tour of Duty, p. 213.

  20 Kirk-Greene, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, p. 37; Collins, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, p. 296.

  21 Jackson, Sudan Days, p. 15.

  22 Kirk-Greene, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, p. 40.

  23 Mangan, J. A., ‘The Education of an Elite Imperial Administration: The Sudan Political Service and the British Public School System’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, 1982, pp. 671–99, at p. 689.

  24 Collins, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, p. 301.

  25 Ibid., p. 297.

  26 TNA, CO 877/11/2, ‘Sudan Political Service’, Information for Candidates, reprinted, January 1933, pp. 5, 1.

  27 Ibid., pp. 4–5.

  28 Jackson, Sudan Days, p. 17.

  29 Thesiger, Wilfred, The Life of my Choice, London, 1987, p. 171.

  30 Keun, A Foreigner Looks, p. 50.

  31 Ibid., p. 52.

  32 Collins, ‘The Sudan Political Service’, p. 300.

  33 MECA, MacMichael Papers, letter from Sir John Maffey, Governor General of Sudan, to Harold MacMichael, 27 April 1927.

  34 TNA, CO 877/11/2, Information for Candidates, p. 3.

  35 Jackson, Sudan Days, pp. 26–7.

  36 Kenrick, Rosemary, Sudan Tales: Recollections of Some Sudan Political Service Wives 1926–1956, Cambridge, 1987, p. 9.

  37 Ibid., pp. 25–6.

  38 Ibid., p. 26.

  39 TNA, FO 141/647/16, ‘General Situation in the Sudan’, 9 June 1935.

  40 Symes, Tour of Duty, p. 220.

  41 Steevens, With Kitchener, p. 2.

  42 TNA, FO 373/5/20, ‘Handbook of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’, p. 57.

  43 Ibid., p. 43.

  44 Buchan, John, Greenmantle, London, 1916, new edn 1964, p. 18.

  45 TNA, FO 633/110, Cromer papers, ‘Sudan Book of Loyalty’, pp. 1–2.

  46 TNA, FO 141/426/9, ‘Darfur Situation and Ali Dinar’, Cursory Review of our Political Relations with the Sultan of Darfur, 10 August 1915, p. 1.

  47 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

  48 Ibid., ‘Confidential Dispatch’ from Wingate to Sir Henry MacMahon, Resident in Cairo, 12 February 1916, pp. 1–3.

  49 Ibid., telegram from Wingate to Gilbert Clayton in Cairo, 26 February 1916, pp. 1–4.

  50 Ibid., translation of a letter addressed to Sultan Ali Dinar by Enver Pasha, 3 February 1915.

  51 Ibid., letter from Ali Dinar to the Governor of Kordofan, 7 February 1916.

  52 Ibid., ‘Proclamation to all the natives of Darfur translated from Arabic’, [n.d.] April 1916.

  53 Ibid., letter from Wingate to Gilbert Clayton, 25 May 1916.

  54 Ibid., letter from Ali Dinar to the Sirdar (Wingate), c. 17 May 1916.

  55 Ibid., letter from Ali Dinar to the Sirdar (Wingate), c. end of May 1916.

  56 Ibid., ‘Final Despatch Western Frontier Force Sudan’, [n.d.] November 1916.

  57 TNA, FO 141/805/2, translation of a letter to H. M. Saad Pasha Zaghloul, Prime Minister of Egypt, 9 July 1924.

  58 DNB.

  59 Collins, Robert, Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan 1918–1956, New Haven, 1983, pp. 44–5.

  60 Quoted in MECA, MacMichael papers, ‘Review of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’, Oxford Times, 26 October 1934.

  61 Ibid.

  62 Johnson, Douglas H., The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, Oxford, 2003, p. 11.

  63 TNA, FO 141/624/4, ‘Spread of Arabic Language in the Southern Sudan’, memorandum by Lord Lloyd, Resident in Cairo, to Arthur Henderson, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 19 June 1929.

  64 TNA, FO 141/647/16, ‘General Situation in the Sudan’, ‘Political Memorandum on the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan’, written by Stewart Symes, 9 June 1935, Khartoum.

  65 TNA, FO 141/544/1, ‘Education in Sudan’, memorandum by A. F. G. Huddleston, Acting Governor General of the Sudan, 4 June 1932.

  Chapter 13: North and South

  1 Daly, M. W., Imperial Sudan: The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, Cambridge, 1991, p. 235.

  2 Henderson, K. D. D., The Making of the Sudan: The Life and Letters of Sir Douglas Newbold, London, 1953, p. 55, letter to Frank Cottrell, 29 October 1933.

  3 Thomas, Graham F., Sudan 1950–1985: Death of a Dream, London, 1990, pp. 15, 31.

  4 Ibid., p. 21; Thomas, Graham F., Sudan: Struggle for Survival, London, 1993, p. 6.

  5 TNA, FO 371/73472, ‘Political Situation in Sudan, 1949’, letter from F. Roberts to M. Wright, Foreign Office, 18 April 1949.

  6 Thomas, Sudan: Death of a Dream, p. 29.

  7 Meredith, Martin, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, London, 2005, p. 5.

  8 Collins, Robert O., Shadows in the Grass: Britain in the Southern Sudan 1918–1956, New Haven, 1983, p. x.

  9 Ibid., pp. 175, 261.

  10 Robertson, Sir James, Transition in Africa: From Direct Rule to Independence, London, 1974, p. 110.

  11 Ibid.

  12 Daly, Imperial Sudan, p. 236.

  13 Ibid., pp. 242–3.

  14 TNA, FO 371/80358, ‘The Political Situation in the Sudan, 1950’, Report on the Southern Provinces of the Sudan covering 1948 and 1949, to African Department of the Foreign Office, by Sir James Robertson, 9 March 1950.

  15 Ibid., letter from Sir R. Howe to Sir W. Strang, personal, 8 March 1950.

  16 TNA, FO 371/73472, ‘Political Situation in the Sudan, 1949’, Background to Sudan News, The First Session of the Legislative Assembly (opened December 1948), prepared by E. N. Corbyn, May 1949.

  17 Thomas, Graham F., From the Last of the Proconsuls: Letters from Sir James Robertson, London, 1994, p. 83, letter from Sir James Robertson to Graham Thomas, 30 January 1974.

  18 Ibid., p. 64, letter from Sir James Robertson to Graham Thomas, 15 January 1956.

  19 Johnson, Douglas H., The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, Oxford, 2003, p. 26.

  20 Johnson, Douglas H. (ed.), British Documents on the End of Empire, Series B, vol. 5: Sudan, London, 1998, p. 506, dispatch no. 128 from Sir E. Chapman Andrews to Selwyn Lloyd, 30 October 1956.

  21 MECA, Davies papers, G. Warburg interview with R. Davies, held on 28 September 1970.

  22 Meredith, The State of Africa, p. 345.

  23 TNA, CO 822/1185, ‘Mutinies in Southern Sudan’, Omdurman Radio Political Diary by Muhammad Yusuf Hashim, September 1955, enclosed i
n a note from Evelyn Shuckburgh to Henry Hopkinson MP, 9 September 1955.

  24 Ibid., Ayam, 3 September 1955.

  25 O’Ballance, Edgar, Sudan, Civil War and Terrorism 1956–99, London, 2000, p. 8.

  26 TNA, CO 822/1185, draft letter from T. I. K. Lloyd, Colonial Office, to Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, c. September 1955.

  27 Ibid.

  28 Johnson (ed.), British Documents, p. 506, dispatch no. 128 from Sir E. Chapman Andrews to Selwyn Lloyd, 30 October 1956.

  29 Sudan Tribune, 31 August 2007.

  30 O’Ballance, Edgar, The Secret War in the Sudan 1955–1972, London, 1977, p. 149.

  31 TNA, FO 1090/1, Daily Telegraph, ‘Extermination Army from Khartoum’, 21 March 1967; The Times, ‘Where Racialism is Ignored’, 7 April 1967, letter from Sir David Renton QC, MP.

  32 TNA, Fo 1090/1, letter from D. J. Speares, Foreign Office, to Sir Hugh Greene, Broadcasting House, 8 April 1967.

  33 TNA, FCO 29/295, ‘Malawi Political Affairs’, President Welcomes Autonomy for Southern Sudan, by Alfred Mkandawine, 11 June 1969.

  34 Eprile, Cecil, War and Peace in the Sudan 1955–1972, London, 1974, p. 49.

  35 Lawrence Joffe, obituary of Jaafar Nimeiri, Guardian, 5 June 2009.

  36 TNA, FCO 39/510, ‘Sudan Economic Affairs, Bilateral Relations with USSR’, letter from G. O. Roberts to Mrs Eirene White MP, 26 August 1969.

  37 TNA, FCO 93/1186, ‘Valedictory Dispatch–Sudan’, J. F. S. Phillips to David Owen, 30 September 1977.

  38 Meredith, The State of Africa, p. 312.

  39 TNA, FCO 93/1659, ‘Oil in the Sudan, 1978’, letter from Brian Pridham to P. J. Torry, 3 October 1978; letter from Brian Pridham to P. J. Torry, 6 July 1978.

  40 TNA, FCO 93/1652, ‘Military Relations between UK and Sudan’, memorandum dated 22 June 1978.

  41 TNA, FCO 93/1636, D. C. Carden on North–South Relations, 18 December 1978, details of a meeting with Hassan Turabi, held on 28 November 1978.

  42 Meredith, The State of Africa, p. 357.

  43 Joffe, obituary of Nimeiri, Guardian, 5 June 2009.

  44 Thomas, Sudan: Struggle for Survival, pp. xiii–xiv.

  45 Steevens, G. W., With Kitchener to Khartoum, London, 1898, new edn 1990, p. 2.

  46 Daly, M. W., Darfur’s Sorrow: A History of Destruction and Genocide, Cambridge, 2007, p. 254.