This Sceptred Isle

by Christopher Lee

  The bigger and lasting conundrum was the global confrontation; equally, the most important ally after the United States, the Soviet Union had few reservations about fighting Hitler and Japan. It had not joined the war to hold together the British Empire. True, the war could bring about the collapse of Empire; but that was unlikely as long as the Soviet Union bore the brunt of Hitler’s firepower. Nevertheless, Stalin’s army was not going to defend the British Empire in Burma and Singapore. Singapore was bought in the nineteenth century because it was a choke point for shipping and controlled the Empire’s access and authority over south-east Asia as well as the Far East. Singapore, Burma, Malaya and Hong Kong all fell to the Japanese. The imperial dominoes were tumbling and so were the Empire’s servicemen and women. For example, of the 30,000 or so who died in the Merchant Navy, 5,000 were from the colonies. The Canadians sent almost 500,000 men and women and the first contingents were in Britain by December 1939. Seven divisions of Australians, more than half a million men and women, were sent; 27,000 were killed. Two divisions of New Zealanders were committed to the Pacific and the Middle East. The South Africans, at first only in their own continent, fought through Italy.

  In India, the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow declared war without consulting any of the major political or cultural figures in the subcontinent. They were treated just as they had been at the start of the Great War. This very real affront didn’t meant that those same leaders failed to support the war. Gandhi told Linlithgow that he viewed the war with an English heart. Nehru said he was offended by the Viceroy’s proclamation but not its sentiment. He supported the war because he believed fascism had to be confronted. The Congress Party could not follow that line. Congress represented too much of India and a broad section of it. It did not withdraw from government as some members wanted to, but it hardly participated in issues that had to do with the war – Congress could not be seen to be entirely pro British otherwise its pressures for independence would weaken. This did not deter the Indian war effort. India became a pivot in the allied war in the Far East and 2.25 million Indians were in uniform. So, here were reasons that the Second World War revived, albeit briefly, the imperial nature of Empire. It expanded the authority of the dominions, each of which assumed an individual position unleashed from Britain. Inevitably, there was a sense of never again although that had been the feeling after the Great War. The Second World War changed so much in political and social life among the Western allies that it was inevitable that the imperial tableau should also be altered, except, of course, in the mind of Britain’s wartime leader, Winston S. Churchill.

  When Churchill went into Parliament in 1901, twelve million square miles or so of the globe was British. More than 440 million people (about the population of twenty-first century Continental Europe) lived under the authority of the Union flag. Maybe this made 1947 harder to understand for those so wedded to the commercial and strategic values as well as the images of British imperial history. Churchill, with that obvious imperial DNA he displayed so easily, could not accept the independence of India and the removal of the very jewel upon which he had gazed all his life.

  The political expediency, the sell-outs, the broken promises and the horrifying violence in India in 1947 was morally and politically shocking, and not just to the British. The transition to independence was never expected to be an entirely peaceful process. The animosities between Hindu and Muslim, the rushed planning for the handover and the opposing values of Gandhi and Jinnah seemingly and inevitably all led to a transition deeply and forever stained with a level of violence between the indigenous people that had never been known under British rule. Some would blame the speed at which independence was finally granted and, in particular, the style of the man selected to see it through, Lord Mountbatten (1900–79). It is true that he was sometimes the most arrogant of almost all the viceroys that had gone before. However, he alone should not be held responsible for the carnage when a million Indians died. The British collectively failed for five reasons: they failed to set in train a reasonable form of independence before the Second World War; Churchill’s Victorian imperial instincts refused to admit that independence was right and inevitable; London should not have dismissed the previous governor General Archibald Wavell (1883–1950) and his eminently sensible military plan to cover the withdrawal of Muslims to the newly created State of Pakistan (the name is an acronym from Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Iran, Sindh, Turkharistan, Afghanistan); the British did not give Jinnah more support until it was all too late; the British were frightened of Gandhi’s influence over his people even though it was obvious he could never deliver his ambition to have an India with a single national identity.

  The independence movement had found its feet in the 1940s. Colonies such as Ghana, Burma, Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) made a relatively easy transition. Others were not so fortunate. The 1952 Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya was a bloody affair and, to a lesser extent, so was the state of emergency in Cyprus. The demands or inclinations for colonial independence should not be seen in isolation from other British political and military excursions. The surest example of this occurred in 1956 when Britain, with the help of France and Israel, attacked the Suez Canal Zone. In 1875, Disraeli had bought from the Ottoman governor a controlling interest in the Suez Canal Company. A decade later, Britain became a guarantor of the canal’s neutral status. It was an economically vital waterway to so many nation-states and, given the volatile political nature of the region, was always vulnerable to closure. In the 1950s, faced with Arab nationalism, Britain gradually withdrew from its position as major military power in Egypt.

  The Egyptian leader who had Britain on the run was Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–70). Nasser was immensely popular far beyond his own Egyptian borders. Nasserism was indeed a movement, just as had been the late nineteenth-century Mahdiya Islam Brotherhood that under the 1881 holy war, the jihad, terrorized British interests in the Sudan. Nasser was seen by many in the region as a new Mahdi (guided one). When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden (1897–1977) set out to regain the canal. This single action was the last imperial charge of the British. It was also a politically divisive event in the United Kingdom. Eden, against the military advice of his chiefs of staff and, against the wishes of the United States, combined with France and Israel to invade the Suez Canal Zone. Eden was obsessed with Nasser. The operation was a disaster. It had a limited military advantage, but with no support from other States, Eden had to order withdrawal. It was also his withdrawal from British politics. He was totally discredited, much to the anticipation of his Chancellor, Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) who quietly sat waiting for Eden to leave Number 10 Downing Street, into which he, Macmillan, then entered. Suez, set British politics on another road and, it weakened its authority in the Middle East.

  Macmillan, meanwhile, saw the way of the modern colonial world and in 1960 made what is now seen as one of the most important speeches on independence and freedoms ever heard in Africa. Macmillan, first, to hardly any attention in the House of Commons and then, in Africa, made his ‘wind of change’ speech. He was saying that the Empire was disappearing, but people within that Empire had to realize why and that it should be an evolution rather than a revolution. Of course, he was right and few, other than the hardline white ruling classes of South Africa for whom black rule was unthinkable, doubted Macmillan. What he said was not surprising. What was important was the fact that he said it where he did. In that same year, 1960, Nigeria and Cyprus became independent. The following year, 1961, Sierra Leone joined Tanganyika as an independent state. South Africa would not budge. Apartheid was an ideology as well as an unspeakable form of self-protection for the ruling whites. Rather than even consider bending, South Africa detached itself from the debate and left the Commonwealth. The rest of the colonial world had little difficulty in seeing their future as well-supported and, in some cases, very well funded independent States. The West Indies Federation broke up in 1962 and Uganda als
o took its freedom. Kenya became independent in 1963 and, the following year, Zambia was created out of what used to be Northern Rhodesia. When Southern Rhodesia declared its own independence (UDI) it did so because the white settlers had watched what had happened to other newly created nation-states in Africa and believed that chaos would follow. So the march of independence continued, until the last colony to be handed over was Hong Kong. In 1997, the colony was given back to the Chinese. The British no longer mourned their Empire.

  The few Crown colonies that remain too often cause pain to the British administration. Successive British governments, particularly that of Prime Minister Tony Blair, would have dearly loved to give Gibraltar to the Spanish. However, the people of Gibraltar, rather like those of the Falkland Islands, want to remain British. In some ways, the Falkland Islanders and the Gibraltarians are rather like the original seventeenth-century settlers in far-flung places. They rely on the patronage of the British monarch for their very existence.

  When the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, ordered a task force to recapture the Falkland Islands from the Argentinians in 1982, she was doing more than holding on to a bit of imperial history. During that period of the spring of 1982, there re-emerged in the British people a jingoism that is a reminder that the legacy of Empire runs deep. However, there was also evidence that it was waning.

  The Thatcher act of defending a possession in true imperial style was coincidental with a step-change in British identity and the celebration that followed told us, admittedly anecdotally, something not all had recognized in the modern British character. The leaders wanted a victory parade. Although none would doubt the loyal support of the British public for the armed services, there was too a sense that that same public had moved on. There was an uneasiness about the form of celebration. Parades are fine spectacles and those who march may do so proudly, knowing that by and large they have the right to and the streets will be lined with those who agree. There was, however, a feeling that the British no longer cavorted to jingoism. When in February 2002, the Guardian newspaper surveyed a sample of those born during the conflict, it reported that hardly any knew anything about the war. Not one said that it had an impact on his or her life. The fact that about 1,000 had died, 255 of whom were British, meant nothing.

  The Attlee government had, through social conviction, created a period of bewildering change in a society that had not seen such specific policy review in the previous years of the century in spite of two global wars. For the rest of the century, certainly from the late 1950s, the perception of Britain as a principal member of a global master-class would also change. It would do so because of the quick evolution of political and social thought in the United Kingdom and in particular its often defensive reaction to what went on in the rest of the world.

  Post-Second World War Europe took decades to recover from that conflict at a time when it was still economically bruised from the market effects of the preceding decade. The UK had gone into the Second World War just a step or two ahead of the bailiffs. The war had helped some industries, particularly, for example, those involved with the constant production of war materiel. After the war, Britain was poor. The means of rapid industrial recovery, including supplies and domestic and foreign markets, were not readily available. The war had produced advances in aircraft design, communications, engineering systems and a reminder that the value of the female labour force at whatever level should not be underestimated. The revolution in social conditions for the population were applauded but beyond the means of the nation. At the same time, the United Kingdom did not have the opportunity to close its gates and sort its own difficulties. The borders of Europe had changed. When Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, he did so in the knowledge that every European map had to be redrawn and every security concept rethought (NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – was not formed until April 1949):

  The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with this primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. As you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done, but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining, for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the aftertime.

  It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall rule and guide the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.

  I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain – and I doubt not here also – toward the peoples of all the Russias and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships.

  It is my duty, however, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.

  From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

  The safety of the world, ladies and gentlemen, requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung.

  Here then was the reasoning for the formation of NATO, said to have been described by its first Secretary General, Lord Ismay (1887–1965), as an alliance to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down. The Americans, in the same year as Churchill’s speech, 1946, formulated their policy of containment: the concept that global Communism and not just European Communism could only be contained. There was no great stomach for war until policy changed in the Far East when it was seen that a Communist advance could prove the domino theory that as one country fell, so the neighbour would. Churchill’s Iron Curtain remained until November 1989 and so from 1946, if not earlier, successive British governments believed and so geared their defences to the possibility that an East–West European trip wire would snap and Soviet forces would be at the Channel ports within four to ten days.

  In these forbidding times of the 1940s, the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan spent their formative years. By the time they reached the heights of political power in the late 1970s, nothing that had happened during the intervening years – the Berlin airlift between 1948 and 1949, the Korean War that started in 1951, the creation of the Warsaw Treaty Organization in 1954, the suppression of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956, the Soviet lead in intercontinental warfare technology in 1957, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the invasion into Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on – changed their minds about the threats to their societies. On this fact alone, we may suspect the origins of uncompromising attitudes to any form of threat during their leadership.

  By the closing years of the 1950s in Britain, there was a social movement that would set a pattern for the futures of younger people who would influence the next generation, which in turn would manipulate the technological revolution that followed in the 1990s and into the twenty-first century.

  In 1947, a shortage of fuel and the harshest winter since 1894 were largely responsible for yet a further band of austerity measures. However, there were stirrings that times were changing for the better. The film industry was upbeat and full of romantic storylines such as Herbert Wilcox’s (1890–1977) Spring in Park Lane. Musicals (as opp
osed to revues) appeared for the first time. Oklahoma! made its London debut when it opened in Drury Lane in April 1947 to delirious audiences who had never before seen its like. Christian Dior (1905–57) presented his first fashion collection and lifted the industry and Western women out of their dressing up doldrums. It was called the A-Line, or as the Americans called it, the New Look. This, with the fairy-tale wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Prince Philip, gave the feeling that maybe there was indeed a new life out there somewhere. For the next ten years, the pace of social and cultural change quickened in Britain. Rock ’n’ roll, with its origins in blues and country music, crossed the Atlantic and with it came the idea that three or four people could plug in the phenomenon of the youth club scene, the electric guitar, and take on the world. In doing so, they could kick over so many concepts that their parents clung to – especially the idea that young people should be seen but not heard. They were being heard through mega-decibel amplifiers.