The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire

by H. W. Crocker, III

  He gained a patron in Lord Minto, the admirably liberal governor-general of India, who recognized Raffles’ talent and looked for a way to deploy it against the French, who were the recipients, under Napoleon, of the Dutch Southeast Asian empire. Minto made Raffles his special agent in Malacca, charged with gauging whether the Javanese would support a British invasion against their Franco-Dutch rulers. As a Malay noted of Raffles, he was “most courteous in his intercourse with all men. He had a sweet expression on his face, was extremely affable and liberal, and listened with attention when people spoke to him.”2 In other words, Raffles was a perfect diplomatic agent.

  With stout English confidence, Raffles advised Minto that Java could be taken with fewer than 10,000 men (3,000 Europeans, the rest sepoys), though the Franco-Dutch forces numbered a good 14,000. He thought the Javanese nobles would back the British. In 1811, in a swift summer campaign, Java was added to the East India Company’s empire, and Raffles was made lieutenant governor of Java.

  Raffles ruled the island from September 1811 to March 1816. He put down rebellious sultans, kept the peace, abolished slavery, reformed the administration of the island, dismantled the Dutch mercantilist system, and established a freer market system that guaranteed property rights (including the rights of small Javanese farmers). The only reform he could not achieve was making Java profitable to the Company—and the Company, while happy to be rid of the French, was not so very happy being saddled with responsibility for the island. With the restoration of Java to the Dutch after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Raffles was out of a job. He returned home a hero, though facing minor, trumped-up charges (insinuated by a disgruntled and dishonest subordinate) of corruption, of which he was later entirely cleared.

  Imperial Advice

  “Let us do all the good we can while we are here.”

  Lord Minto to Raffles after the conquest of Java, quoted in Maurice Collins, Raffles (The John Day Company, 1968) p. 70

  He also came home a widower. He remarried in 1817, the same year he published his History of Java and was appointed governor-general of Bencoolen. Favored by the prince regent (the future George IV) and his daughter Princess Charlotte, he left for Sumatra as Sir Stamford Raffles. Bencoolen, however, was less welcoming. The settlement was a wreck, his official residence badly damaged by an earthquake, the government house abandoned and derelict, the roads choked with vegetation; it was, he wrote, “without exception the most wretched place I ever beheld. I cannot convey to you an adequate idea of the ruin and dilapidation which surrounds me.”3 While rebuilding he followed his usual path of free market reforms, freeing slaves, and exploring the interior, where he discovered a giant flowering plant now known as the Rafflesia Arnoldi. His wife, meanwhile, the first white woman many of the natives had ever seen, was regarded as something of a goddess (even though, to English eyes, she was nowhere near as good-looking as his first wife; she was, however, six years his junior).

  His wife’s presumed divinity aside, it was not the backwaters of Bencoolen where Raffles would make his mark—that would be in Singapore, an island city-state he founded in 1819 in order to give the British a foothold, and a free trade entrepôt, on the Straits of Malacca. Raffles wrote to William Wilberforce that Singapore had given the British “command of the Archipelago as well as in peace as in war: our commerce will extend to every part, and British principles will be known and felt throughout.”4 By British principles he meant free trade, fair play, and honest administration of just laws.

  Raffles’ usual sunny spirits were clouded by the loss of his eldest three children—victims of the tropics—and his own health began to falter as he was beset by blistering headaches. It became evident that he would have to return to England. Before he left, however, he drew up Singapore’s constitution, established a Malay College, and had the pleasure of seeing Singapore develop as a successful, rapidly growing, port city. He also endured the tragedy of his youngest daughter dying (another daughter in England survived) and having the ship carrying all his notes, his animal specimens, his maps—virtually all his belongings—burst into flames and sink to the bottom of the sea. The great entrepreneurial statesman, the great amateur anthropologist, zoologist, and botanist, the great scholar of the Malay people—their history, religion, language, and culture—returned to England empty-handed. There was only this consolation: in 1824, a sweeping Anglo-Dutch treaty accepted Singapore as British (though Bencoolen and the whole of Sumatra went to the Dutch), drawing an equatorial line, giving the British the northern territories of Malaya and the Dutch the southern territories of Indonesia.

  In England, still in bad health, Raffles again successfully rebuffed accusations from a disgruntled subordinate, this time over the administration of Singapore. In addition, he was harried by an ungrateful East India Company, which not only denied him a pension but demanded he reimburse the Company for a variety of charges, including those he had incurred to found Singapore. Still, he maintained an active social and intellectual life, including establishing the London Zoo. He died of a stroke in 1826, one day before his forty-fifth birthday. His parish priest—who had investments in plantations dependent on slave labor—refused to commemorate the anti-slaver Raffles with a memorial in his church; Westminster Abbey made good the difference, erecting a statue in Raffles’ honor. Raffles has other memorials, too, most of them in Singapore, ranging from colleges and schools, to a horse racing cup, to the celebrated Raffles Hotel. In the words of one of his biographers, “He taught Malays, Chinese and Javanese to think of the Englishman as just, liberal and sympathetic.”5 Raffles was all that.

  The White Rajah

  When Raffles died, James Brooke was twenty-three, an army officer with the British East India Company. His father had served the Company too, and James had been born in India. He was a child of some privilege, doted on by his parents who didn’t ship him home to England to be educated until he was twelve years old; and then it appears he was less interested in hitting the books than hitting the decks and sailing. His formal education didn’t last long: by sixteen he was an ensign in John Company’s Indian army. He much enjoyed the frat house side of a young officer’s life—sports and pranks—but was rather less keen on serious desk duties (which he acquired on rising to sub-assistant commissary general). Far more to his taste was raising a troop of native cavalry scouts to fight for the Company in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26). In that war, Brooke suffered a grievous wound—perhaps, it has been surmised, shot in the genitals; others say the lungs—which put him on the invalid list for five years. To fill the empty hours, he daydreamt about adventure and fantasized that he was meant to do something big, if only circumstances would allow.

  The first thing circumstances did was prevent his return to duty within the designated five-year limit.6 So Brooke resigned his commission, decided that his life’s work was to plough the sea and set foot on a far eastern island where no white man had trodden before, and to that end badgered his reluctant father into buying him “a rakish slaver-brig.”7 Better that, his father thought, than having young James moping about like an adolescent—though his schemes sounded impractical to the old man.

  His father was right. James’s schemes were impractical, and commercial failures—but profit-making was never really Brooke’s goal. Brooke’s real interest was in unexplored territory. When his father died, he used his inheritance to acquire a bigger boat, a schooner, and set himself to studying nautical books and the works of Sir Stamford Raffles, after whose adventures he hoped to model his own. He decided, as a young Englishman might in the nineteenth century, to annex a goodly portion of Borneo for the British Empire and in the process “relieve the darkness of Paganism, and the horrors of the eastern slave-trade.”8

  Brooke’s schooner, The Royalist, was fitted out with guns, gave its master a reason to wear a dashing uniform, and, as a listed vessel with the Royal Yacht Squadron, could fly the white ensign of the Royal Navy. It had in short everything required to impress the nativ
es of Sarawak, northern Borneo, where Brooke landed in 1839. He helped the Sultan of Brunei put down a rebellion in the province; and in consequence of that—as well as a martial show of force by Brooke, who was rather better at the art of war (and diplomacy) than the locals—the Sultan thought it wise to make the enterprising Englishman his governor. In 1841, Brooke assumed the title—to be affirmed later—of Rajah of Sarawak.

  Like Raffles, he set about an administration of reform—in particular, trying to protect the Hill Dayaks (“one of the most interesting and easily to be improved races in the world”9) from the piratical, headhunting Sea Dayaks and imperious Malays. As the Lycurgus of Sarawak, he gave the province a legal code. Typically, while he boasted of Sarawak’s natural resources, it actually had little to offer, and Brooke kept his government afloat by writing checks on his own account or by offering protection to business-savvy Chinese who were harassed by the Malays.

  He also began building a navy. Granted, it was mostly made up of large canoes with small mounted guns, but in his Dudley Do-Right way he was determined to sink Sarawak’s pirates; though in typical British imperial fashion he rather liked the ruffians, just as he found headhunters had their good points too. But most of all, he relished the role of liberating peaceful Sarawakians from fear and injustice. In that cause he enlisted a Royal Navy captain, charged with protecting British shipping, to expand his portfolio and lend him a hand. Brooke became quite the swashbuckling nemesis of the pirates of Sarawak.

  As he extended his authority, so too did he expand British interest and influence. In 1845, he was given the title of Her Majesty’s Confidential Agent to the government in Borneo. With that title, he and the Royal Navy became the kingmakers of Brunei and took ownership of the island of Labuan.10 In 1847, Brooke, the conquering hero, paid a trip back home to England and was lionized—not to mention knighted as Sir James.

  When he returned to Sarawak, he buckled down to further wars against pirates. While he focused on the sword and the cannon, he welcomed Christian missionaries to win converts to peace through good works and schools (the Americans, he thought were better at this approach). Proselytizing Muslims was discouraged, but the Dayaks were fair game. What stunned Brooke was that his recent fights, reported in the British press, brought him not more of the fame he desired but attacks from liberals (ironically, he was himself a Liberal) who questioned why Britain was cooperating with a man who left a trail of dead Sarawakians behind him (even if they were pirates and headhunters). He was rather more popular with the Dayaks and the Malays and Chinese, who prayed for his recovery when he was laid low by smallpox. He survived—both the smallpox and a British inquiry into his affairs, which exonerated him from the highly colored charges thrown against him, though the British government distanced itself from Brooke. To his dismay, he was no longer an official British imperial agent; he was a mere rajah subordinate to the sultan of Brunei.

  The smallpox aged him—perhaps Britain’s ingratitude did as well—and the pirate-hunter turned again to the example of Raffles and became a man of study. Not much interested in female companionship—he always preferred the company of young men, though he was once engaged and had fathered an illegitimate son—he became an avid chess player and liked nothing better than sitting up nights convivially talking about religion, politics, and philosophy. Nevertheless, in 1857 Brooke again buckled on pistol and sabre to put down an insurrection by rebellious Chinese angry over high taxes on their opium and ambitious to seize control of Sarawak now that Brooke was stripped of British support. The Chinese, allegedly more civilized than the Dayaks, proved as barbarous as any—even beheading children or tossing them alive into flames. But as they slaughtered Christians, looted and torched European homes, and burned Malay villages, they were surprised to find an avenging army coming behind them. Brooke was joined by his nephew and eventual successor Charles Johnson (who later took the last name Brooke), already an experienced naval officer. With them were Dayak and Malay warriors who chased the Chinese rebels over the border of Dutch Borneo. There the Chinese fought bloodily amongst themselves; the Dutch finally disarmed them; and the rebels’ booty was returned to Sarawak.

  Brooke—exhausted, his pockets emptied on behalf of Sarawak—came to England again a hero and used his status to raise money for his province. He did that, but also suffered a stroke, in 1858. Malaria and smallpox had taken their toll; the stroke, it seemed to his friends, clouded his mind and judgment. The governance of Sarawak rightly belonged to a younger man who could take the field against pirates, rebels, and barbarous ruffians, who were never in short supply. Brooke toyed with the idea of retiring to an English cottage, but in the end could not leave his life’s work, even if he conducted it from England. He suffered another stroke in 1866 and a third in 1868, which finished him off.

  Sir James Brooke, in Memoriam

  “The Rajah Sir James Brooke . . . was one of the really great men of his time.... He came to a disorganized crowd of savages, and left them a compact nation. He gave peace in their borders and taught them for the first time the meaning of Justice, Mercy and Truth.”

  From an article by P. F. Tidman (who had worked for the Borneo Company and seen Brooke in action) in The Monthly Packet, 14 September 1874, quoted in Nigel Barley, White Rajah: A Biography of Sir James Brooke (Abacus, 2009), p. 229

  The White Rajahs, however, carried on, Brooke’s nephew Charles assuming the title in 1868, followed by his son Charles Vyner Brooke (who governed as rajah from 1917 to 1946). After the Second World War, the British made Sarawak a crown colony—which proved unpopular; the Sarawakians preferred the personal paternalism of the White Rajahs. Brooke’s “model for Sarawak was,” says one of his biographers, “one blatantly transplanted from the English shires—small is good, valorization of face-to-face relationships, the local over the metropolitan, tradition and emotion over rationality,” giving Sarawak an “agreeable Torytown façade.” It was certainly agreeable to the Sarawakians, for whom the memory of the White Rajahs is a fond one.

  Chapter 25

  FIELD MARSHAL SIR THOMAS BLAMEY (1884–1951)

  “In receiving your surrender I do not recognize you as an honorable and gallant foe. . . .”

  —General Blamey, to Japanese Lieutenant-General Fusataro Teshima, 9 September 19451

  Had there never been a British Empire, there would never have been an Australia as we know it today, which would have been an incalculable loss, especially for those who like eating at Australian steak houses, watching Aussie Rules football, and drinking Foster’s Lager. There would also have been no Sir Thomas Blamey of Australia, the Aussies’ only field marshal to date, and one who earned his field marshal’s baton for service to the Empire in two world wars.

  Blamey was born near picturesque Wagga Wagga in New South Wales. WAG did not stand for “wives and girlfriends” in those days, and Blamey was about as far removed from football celebrity, bikini waxes, and paparazzi as one can imagine. He was the seventh of ten children, his antecedents were Scotch and Cornish, and his upbringing was as a farmer’s and drover’s son near the banks of Lake Albert.

  * * *

  Did you know?

  Blamey is the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal

  He was MacArthur’s commander of land forces in the Southwest Pacific

  He dreamt of importing elephants to help develop Papua New Guinea

  * * *

  Australia was a long way from the Sudan, but a year after Blamey was born, Australia made its first overseas military contribution to the British Empire by sending troops, guns, and horses for the “too late” campaign to save General Gordon. Growing up in a patriotic home, Blamey breathed British imperial air, scented with the aromatic dust of Australia.

  He was a small, tough, religious boy, a good student and a reliable horseman, who liked nothing better than setting himself tactical problems with toy soldiers. In school he was in the cadet corps, and tried to enlist, at fifteen, to fight in the Boer War but was sen
t home by the recruiting sergeant. He did, however, help train fellow cadets as a pupil-teacher, and then as full-time teacher starting in 1903. He did the job remarkably well, with a natural air of command and authority—so much so that in 1906, after passing a rigorous examination (in which he placed third in the country), he became a cadet instructor for the Australian military, an appointment that made him a lieutenant. He trained the teachers of the cadet corps in Victoria, and made sure the cadets were up to snuff.2

  When the Staff College in Quetta, India, set aside a slot for an Australian officer, Blamey determined to win it. He did, placing first in the qualifying examination, and enrolled for the 1912–13 term. He was a captain now, a married man, and a father (of a son who would die at twenty-two in a plane crash while serving in the Royal Australian Air Force). When he finished the course, he was briefly posted to some Indian units, and then sent for staff training in England. The year was 1914. He wouldn’t return home for six years; and then he would be a brigadier general.

  Australia Will Be There

  At the start of the First World War, Blamey was a major in British military intelligence, but with the raising of the Australian Imperial Force he was transferred to become its intelligence chief and sent to Egypt in December 1914. In April 1915 he embarked with his fellow Australians for the Gallipoli Campaign. In the trenches, he spotted a lance corporal with a mocked-up periscope rifle; impressed by its design, Blamey refined it and had periscope rifles issued to frontline Australians. When the frustration of Gallipoli ended, in December 1915, Blamey was sent to experience the frustration of the Western Front in France, including the Battle of the Somme. Adding to that frustration was that he spent almost all his time as a staff officer—including chief of staff to the commander of the Australian Corps—rather than in a field command. But he was considered an outstanding, hard-driving staff officer, with a gift for precise and detailed battle orders. He took credit for initiating the Battle of Amiens, the August 1918 offensive that spurred the Allied march to victory, so it wasn’t time altogether wasted. The commander of the Australian Corps, Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash, thought highly of Blamey, saying he “possessed a mind cultured far above the average, widely informed, alert and prehensile. He had an infinite capacity for taking pains.”3 Blamey’s service won him a knighthood.