CONTENTS Title Page Dedication List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction The World Turned Upside Down The American Revolution and the Slave Trade An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas Britannia’s Indian Empire Exempt from the Disaster of Caste Australia, Canada and New Zealand To Stop Is Dangerous, to Recede, Ruin The Far East and Afghanistan Sacred Wrath Irish Famine and Indian Mutiny Spread the Peaceful Gospel—with the Maxim Gun Towards Conquest in Africa A Magnificent Empire Under the British Flag Cape to Cairo Barbarians Thundering at the Frontiers The Boer War and the Indian Raj The Empire, Right or Wrong Flanders, Iraq, Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge 10 Aflame with the Hope of Liberation Ireland and the Middle East 11 Englishmen Like Posing as Gods West and East 12 White Mates Black in a Very Few Moves Kenya and the Sudan 13 Spinning the Destiny of India The Route to Independence 14 That Is the End of the British Empire Singapore and Burma 15 The Aim of Labour Is to Save the Empire Ceylon and Malaya 16 A Golden Bowl Full of Scorpions The Holy Land 17 The Destruction of National Will Suez Invasion and Aden Evacuation 18 Renascent Africa The Gold Coast and Nigeria 19 Uhuru—Freedom Kenya and the Mau Mau 20 Kith and Kin Rhodesia and the Central African Federation 21 Rocks and Islands The West Indies and Cyprus 22 All Our Pomp of Yesterday The Falklands and Hong Kong Abbreviations Notes Sources A Note About the Author Also by Piers Brendon Copyright To Vyvyen With love and thanks ILLUSTRATIONS Section One Missionary with Tahitian converts (Corbis); Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion (Wilberforce House, Hull City Museums and Art Galleries/Bridgeman Art Library); Imperial interior, 1890 (Getty); Lord and Lady Curzon hunt in Hyderabad, 1902 (AKG-London); Hyderabad’s army polo team (Corbis); Sir James Grigg enters Simla, 1938 (Corbis); Hong Kong Harbour seen from Victoria Park (John Hillelson Collection); The CPR’s Iron Horse (Vancouver Public Library, Special Collections); Indian Railway engraving by Indian School (Private Collection/Bridgeman); 10 Teatime in Ceylon (Corbis); 11 Ceylon tea harvest (Corbis); 12 King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat of Burma (Corbis); 13 Christmas day in Burma, 1885 (Corbis); 14 Scottish troops beside the Sphinx, 1882 (Corbis); 15 Tourists on the Great Pyramid, 1938 (Corbis); 16 Imperial stamps (Private Collection) Section Two 17 Sikh officers and men, 1858 (National Army Museum, London/Bridgeman); 18 Lucknow after the Mutiny (Corbis); 19 British camp in Afghanistan (Corbis); 20 Afghan riflemen on the Khyber Pass (Corbis); 21 Irish peasants in the 1880s (Corbis); 22 Dublin’s General Post Office after the Easter Rising (Corbis); 23 The Rhodes Colossus (Getty); 24 Isandhlwana after the battle, 1879 (National Army Museum/Bridgeman); 25 Gold miners in De Kaap, South Africa (Corbis); 26 Boers at Spion Kop, 1900 (Corbis); 27 A meal during the siege of Ladysmith (Popperfoto); 28 Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, 1915 (Corbis); 29 Indian military hospital, Brighton Pavilion (Corbis); 30 The Japanese march on Rangoon, 1942 (Corbis); 31 Nigerian sergeant in Burma, 1944 (Imperial War Museum, London, neg no IND3098); 32 Trade follows the flag, ephemera (Robert Opie Collection) Section Three 33 The Imperial appeal, ephemera (Robert Opie Collection); 34 Gandhi’s Salt March, 1930 (Corbis); 35 Nehru and Jinnah, 1946 (Corbis); 36 The last Viceroy and Vicereine of India (Corbis); 37 The refugees of Partition, 1947 (Corbis); 38 Jewish refugees arrive at Haifa, 1946 (Corbis); 39 The exodus of Palestinian refugees to Gaza (Corbis); 40 British troops confront Cypriots, Nicosia, 1955 (Corbis); 41 The troopship Empire Ken at Port Said, November 1956 (Getty); 42 Detaining Mau Mau suspects in Kenya, 1952 (Corbis); 43 Jomo Kenyatta is hailed as Prime Minister, 1963 (Corbis); 44 Queen Elizabeth II on her tour of Nigeria, 1956 (Corbis); 45 Kwame Nkrumah leads Ghana to Independence, 1957 (Corbis); 46 The Union Jack is lowered in Hong Kong, 1997 (Onasia) Front endpaper Imperial Federation map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire in 1886 © Royal Geographical Society, London Back endpaper World map showing shipping routes and the extent of the British Empire in 1927 © Royal Geographical Society, London ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book ranges across five continents and more than two centuries, so the debts I have incurred during the six years it took to write are correspondingly extensive I must first thank friends and colleagues at Churchill College, Cambridge, who have helped me in countless ways I am especially grateful to Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, and to past and present members of his outstanding team, notably Natalie Adams, Louise King, Andrew Riley and Katharine Thomson Dr Dick Whittaker provided me with indispensable guidance on the Roman Empire Hywel George gave me a unique insight into the workings of the post-war British Empire Dr Alan and Judy Findlay arranged an illuminating tour of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, courtesy of their son Matthew Lady Julia Boyd recalled experiencing the end of the British Empire in person: after the handover in Hong Kong on 30 June 1997, she witnessed the royal yacht Britannia, with the last Governor, the Prince of Wales and other dignitaries on board, sailing into the darkness on her final voyage Most of my work was done at the Cambridge University Library, an incomparable resource for the historian, and I owe thanks especially to Rachel Rowe, Godfrey Waller and Peter Meadows, the Bible Society Librarian Elsewhere librarians and archivists went out of their way to lighten my task I am under particular obligation to Dr Gareth Griffith, Director of the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, who put a room at my disposal in Bristol, where I was also able to draw on the expertise of Jo Duffy Roderick Suddaby gave assistance at the Imperial War Museum So did Kevin Greenbank at the Cambridge Centre for South Asian Studies Further afield, Dr Saroja Wettasinghe, Director of the National Archives of Sri Lanka, eased my path into her collections Suzanne Mallon took immense trouble to introduce me to manuscript material at the Mitchell Library in Sydney In the course of my research I visited a number of ex-colonial clubs—the Tollygunge in Calcutta, the Bangalore Club, the Hong Kong Club and so on—where I was most courteously received I am particularly grateful to Allan Oakley, Secretary of the High Range Club at Munnar in Kerala, and to Stanley Gooneratne, Secretary of the Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya, who was kind enough to open his records for me I have benefited from the aid and counsel of many individuals, among them Dan Burt, Professor Martin Daunton, Dr Richard Duncan-Jones, Bill Kirkman, Gamini Mendis, Professor James Muller, Manus Nunan, Anthony Pemberton, Harold Rosenbaum, and Dr Calder Walton Sir Christopher Hum generously shared his diplomatic memories of the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong Sydney Bolt reminisced with characteristic wit about Britain’s war-time Raj in India as well as commenting on parts of my typescript Michael Murphy performed the same office for my Irish sections, decorating the text with sprightly marginalia Rex Bloomstein devoted time he could ill afford to perusing my chapter on Palestine Richard Ingrams not only unearthed a fascinating vignette of colonial Cyprus penned by Paul Foot soon after he left the school where we all three served time, but he also sent me relevant books to review for The Oldie So, with his unerring literary eye, did Jeremy Lewis Other friends contributed in different ways: Professor Christopher Andrew, my late and muchlamented literary agent Andrew Best, Professor Vic and Pam Gatrell, Tim Jeal, Sharon Maurice, Professor Richard Overy and John Tyler Professor James Mayall allowed me to pick his brains over long lunches I also enjoyed imperial lunches with Dr Ronald Hyam, the leading British authority on the end of Empire, to whom I owe more than I can say He supervised me when I was an undergraduate at Magdalene College, advised me subsequently and, despite seeing his own book through the press, scrutinised every word of mine His criticisms, corrections and suggestions were of inestimable value Needless to say, despite all this extraneous help, I alone bear the responsibility for any mistakes that remain I acknowledge permission to quote copyright material from manuscript sources identified at the end of this book My thanks are especially due to the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, to Matheson & Co Ltd., to Curtis Brown Ltd., London, on behalf of the Estate of Sir Winston Churchill (copyright Winston S Churchill), and to the Master and Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Future editions will be corrected if any copyright has been inadvertently unacknowledged As ever, I am grateful to my publisher Dan Franklin, who commissioned this book, waited for it with exemplary patience and welcomed it with heart-warming enthusiasm He provided a team that made the publication process both smooth and agreeable It consisted of Ellah Allfrey, an accomplished editor; Richard Collins, a meticulous copy editor; Lily Richards, an imaginative and indefatigable picture researcher; and Anna Crone, who did a splendid job designing the cover of the British edition I have equal cause for gratitude to the superlative team at Knopf, who masterminded the American edition: my editor Andrew Miller, his assistant Sara Sherbill, the jacket designer Megan Wilson, and the production editor Kevin Bourke Two other people played key roles in the enterprise My friend, former publisher and literary guru, Tom Rosenthal, gave me constant encouragement and moral support Despite being preoccupied with her own book, Children of the Raj, my wife Vyvyen devoted endless attention to mine, acting more as collaborator than assistant She was vital to the genesis of this volume and, with love and gratitude, I dedicate it to her INTRODUCTION The title of this book, with its echoes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, needs an explanation—if not an apology It was chosen not because I am setting up as a rival to Edward Gibbon but because his work has a profound and hitherto unexplored relevance to my subject No historian in his senses would invite comparison with Gibbon His masterpiece, sustained by a prodigious intellect and an incomparable style, has no competitors It filled the imagination of readers for two centuries and it performed a unique function as a towering piece of literary architecture As Carlyle and others have observed, the book acts as a kind of bridge between the ancient and modern worlds, and “how gorgeously does it swing across the gloomy and multitudinous chasm of those barbarous centuries.”1 It satisfied a general desire, as its author said in his autobiography, to increase the scope of human comprehension Our lives are short So we stretch forwards beyond death with such hopes as Religion and Philosophy will suggest, and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth by associating ourselves with the authors of our existence We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers.2 However, Gibbon’s work exercised a peculiar fascination on his compatriots If everyone looks back to seek a way forward, the British looked back especially to Rome Their rulers were educated in the classics Many of their elite had toured the scenes of antiquity They lived in the light of the Renaissance Steeped in Gibbon’s tremendous drama (but ignoring his admonition about the danger of comparing epochs remote from one another), they perceived striking analogies between the two powers that dominated their respective worlds The Decline and Fall became the essential guide for Britons anxious to plot their own imperial trajectory They found the key to understanding the British Empire in the ruins of Rome Thus part of my purpose in this book is to assess the implications of that colossal wreck It was construed in countless ways British imperialists exhumed a huge miscellany of signs and portents from layer upon layer of archaeological remains The Eternal City was a universal city, cosmic in amplitude and Delphic in utterance It embraced a galaxy of worlds, some contrasting, others coinciding There was republican Rome, pure, virtuous, heroic, the matrix of Macaulay’s Horatius and Kipling’s Regulus Allied to it was the Stoic Rome of noble Brutus and righteous Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations accompanied Cecil Rhodes on his treks across the veldt Then there was imperial Rome, an armed despotism bent on conquest and eventually used to justify the “authoritarian politics”3 of imperial Britain—Thomas De Quincey praised virile Caesar for deflowering Roman liberty There was the Rome of the Antonines, who presided over a golden age of civilisation and whose Pax Romana plainly anticipated the Pax Britannica There was pagan Rome, whose muses shed immortal lustre over the culture of the West There was Catholic Rome, which Gibbon pilloried for combining superstition, fanaticism and corruption He also confirmed some of the prejudices of Britain’s Protestant Empire, remarking that the rapist Pope John XII deterred “female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.” There was monumental Rome, imitated wherever British imperialists wished to Sri Lanka National Archives Governor’s Secret Diary, 7/39–45 S C Fernando/Woolf Papers, 25/7/1 Stewart Mackenzie Collection, 25/5 St Antony’s College, Oxford (SAC) Sir Henry Gurney Collection, GB 165–0128 MacMichael Papers, GB 165–0196 Published Works The Notes constitute a detailed running bibliography They indicate the literature on which this book is based and suggest lines of further reading and research What follows here is a brief selection of the most useful general books on the subject Again, the place of publication is London unless otherwise stated Allen C Plain Tales from the Raj (1976 edn) Allen C Tales from the Dark Continent (1986 edn) Anderson D Histories of the Hanged (2005) Anstey R The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760–1810 (1975) Antonius G The Arab Awakening (2000 edn) Ashton S R and Killingray D (eds) BDEEP, Series A, Vol 6, The West Indies (1999) Ashton S R and Louis W R (eds) BDEEP, Series A, Vol 5, East of Suez and the Commonwealth 1964–1971, Pt I, East of Suez (2004) Ashton S R and Stockwell S E (eds) BDEEP, Series A, Vol I, Imperial Policy and Colonial Practice 1925–1945 Pt II (1996) Austin D Malta and the End of Empire (1971) Austin D Politics in Ghana 1946–1960 (Oxford, 1970) Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma (1968) Balfour-Paul G The End of Empire in the Middle East (Cambridge, 1991) Ballhatchet K Race, Sex and Class under the Raj (1980) Barnes J and Nicholson D (eds) The Empire at Bay: The Leo Amery Diaries 1929–1945 (1988) Barnett D L and Njama K Mau Mau from Within (1966) Bayly C A The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914 (Oxford, 2004) Bayly C A Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World 1780–1830 (1989) Bayly C and Harper T Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia 1941–1945 (2005) Bayly C and Harper T Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire (2007) Belich J Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders from the Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century (1996) Belich J Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 2000 (2001) Berman B Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya (1990) Bethell N The Palestine Triangle (1979) Blake R A History of Rhodesia (1977) Bodelsen C A Studies in Mid-Victorian Imperialism (1960) Bourne K The Foreign Policy of Victorian England (Oxford, 1970) Bowle J The Imperial Achievement (1974) Brogan H Longman History of the United States of America (1985) Brown J M Gandhi’s Rise to Power (Cambridge, 1972) Brown J M Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Oxford, 1994 edn) Burn W L Emancipation and Apprenticeship in the British West Indies (1937) Cady J F A History of Modern Burma (Ithaca, NY, 1958) Cain P J and Hopkins A G British Imperialism vols (1993) Cairns H A C Prelude to Imperialism (1965) Calder A Revolutionary Empire: The Rise of the English-Speaking Empire from the Fifteenth Century to the 1780s (1981) Callahan R The Worst Disaster: The Fall of Singapore (Newark, NJ, 1977) Cannadine D Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (2001) Clark C M H A History of Australia, vols (1962–87) Clayton A The British Empire as a Superpower, 1919–39 (1986) Clifford N R Spoilt Children of Empire (Hanover, NH, 1991) Collingham E M Imperial Bodies (2001) Cottrell R The End of Hong Kong: The Secret Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat (1993) Coupland R The American Revolution and the British Empire (1930) Crocker W R Nigeria: A Critique of British Administration (1936) Crouzet F Le Conflit de Chypre, vols (Brussels, 1973) Crowder M The Story of Nigeria (1973 edn) Crowder M West Africa under Colonial Rule (1968) Curtin P D Africa Remembered (1967) Curtin P D Disease and Empire (Cambridge, 1988) Daly M W Empire on the Nile (Cambridge, 1986) Daly M W Imperial Sudan (Cambridge, 1991) Darwin J The End of the British Empire: The Historical Debate (Oxford, 1991) Davis M Late Victorian Holocausts (2001) De Kiewiet C W The Imperial Factor in South Africa (1965 edn) de Silva K M (ed.) BDEEP, Series E, Vol II, Sri Lanka, Pts I and II (1997) Driver F and Gilbert D Imperial Cities: Landscape, Display and Identity (Manchester, 1999) Durrell L Bitter Lemons (1957) Edwards C Roman Presences: Receptions of Rome in European Cultures, 1789–1945 (Cambridge, 1999) Elkins C Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (2005) Fage J D and Oliver R (eds) The Cambridge History of Africa, vols (Cambridge, 1975–86) Farnie D A East and West of Suez: The Suez Canal in History, 1854–1956 (Oxford, 1969) Fay P W The Opium War 1840–1842 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975) Ferguson N Empire (2003) Fieldhouse D K Economics and Empire 1830–1914 (1973) Foley C (ed.) The Memoirs of General Grivas (1964) Foster R F Modern Ireland 1600–1972 (1988) Fraser C Ambivalent Anti-Colonialism: The United States and the Genesis of West Indian Independence, 1940–1964 (Westport, CT, 1994) Freedman L The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, vols (2005) Furnivall J S Colonial Policy and Practice (New York, 1956) Furse R Aucuparius (1962) Gallagher J The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1982) Gibbon E The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vols, edited by D Womersley (Harmondsworth, 1994 edn) Gifford P and Louis W R (eds) Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfer of Power, 1960–1980 (New Haven, CT, 1988) Gifford P and Louis W R (eds) The Transfer of Power in Africa: Decolonization 1940–1960 (New Haven, CT, 1982) Gilmour D Curzon (1994) Gilmour D The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (2005) Goldsworthy D (ed.) BDEEP, Series A, Vol 3, The Conservative Government and the End of Empire 1951–1957, Pt I (1994) Gollin A M Proconsul in Politics (1964) Gopal S British Policy in India 1858–1905 (Cambridge, 1965) Gregory R G India and East Africa (Oxford, 1971) Grimal H Decolonization (1978 edn) Hamid S S Disastrous Twilight (1986 edn) Hancock W K Smuts, vols (Cambridge, 1962–8) Hargreaves J D The End of Colonial Rule in West Africa (1979) Harlow V and Chilver E M (eds) History of East Africa, II (Oxford, 1965) Harlow V T The Founding of the Second British Empire 1763–1793, vols (1952–64) Harper T N The End of Empire and the Making of Malaya (Cambridge, 1999) Headrick D R The Tools of Empire (New York, 1981) Heinlein F British Government Policy and Decolonisation 1945–1963 (2002) Heussler R Completing a Stewardship: The Malayan Civil Service 1942–1957 (Westport, CT, 1983) Hibbert C The Great Mutiny India 1857 (1980 edn) Hillmer N and Granatstein J L Empire to Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990s (Toronto, 1994) Hobsbawm E J Industry and Empire (1969 edn) Hobson J A Imperialism (1948 edn) Holland R Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954–1959 (Oxford, 1998) Holland R European Decolonization 1918–1981: An Introductory Survey (Basingstoke, 1985) Holland Rose J., Newton A P and Benians E A (eds) The Cambridge History of the British Empire, vols (Cambridge, 1925–59) Hopkirk P The Great Game (1990) Howe S Anticolonialism in British Politics (Oxford, 1993) Hoyos F A Grantley Adams and the Social Revolution (1974) Hughes R The Fatal Shore (1996 edn) Huxley E White Man’s Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya, vols (1935) Hyam R and Henshaw P The Lion and the Springbok (Cambridge, 2003) Hyam R and Louis W R (eds) BDEEP, Series A, Vol 4, The Conservative Government and the End of Empire 1957–1964, Pt I, High Policy, Political and Constitutional Change (2000) Hyam R Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918–1968 (Cambridge, 2006) Hyam R Britain’s Imperial Century (1993 edn) Hyam R Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester, 1990) Iliffe J Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge, 1995) Irving R G Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker and Imperial Delhi (1981) James, L The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1994) Judd D Balfour and the British Empire (1968) Judd D and Surridge K The Boer War (2002) Keay J Last Post: The End of Empire in the Far East (1997) Kennedy D Islands of White (Durham, NC, 1987) Kennedy P M The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (1983 edn) Kiernan V The Lords of Human Kind (1995 edn) Kirk-Greene A On Crown Service (1999) Kirk-Greene A H M Africa in the Colonial Period, III: The Transfer of Power (Oxford, 1979) Kirkman W P Unscrambling the Empire (1966) Koebner, K Empire (Cambridge, 1961) Krebs P M Gender, Race, and the Writing of Empire (Cambridge, 1999) Kyle K Suez (1991) Landes D The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge, 1969) Lapping B End of Empire (1985) Longford E Queen Victoria (1964) Louis W R Ends of British Imperialism (2006) Louis W R Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire 1941–1945 (Oxford, 1977) Louis W R In The Name of God, Go! (1992) Louis W R (general editor) The Oxford History of the British Empire, vols (Oxford 1998–9) Low D A Britain and Indian Nationalism (Cambridge, 1997) Lycett, A Rudyard Kipling (1999) Lynn M (ed.) BDEEP, Series B, Vol 7, Nigeria: Managing Political Reform 1943–1953, Pt I (2001) MacKenzie J M Propaganda and Empire (Manchester, 1984) Madden F (ed.) The End of Empire: Dependencies since 1948 Select Documents… VIII (Westport, CT, 2000) Magnus P Kitchener: Portrait of an Imperialist (1968 edn) Mangan J A The Games Ethic and Imperialism (1986) Manning H T British Colonial Government after the American Revolution 1782–1820 (1933) Mansergh N The Commonwealth Experience (1969) Mansergh N et al (eds) The Transfer of Power 1942–7 12 vols (1970–83) Marais J S The Fall of Kruger’s Republic (Oxford, 1961) Martin G Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837–67 (1995) Mason P The Men Who Ruled India (1985) Mayes S Makarios (1981) McNaught K The History of Canada (1970) Moon P Divide and Quit (Delhi, 1998 edn) Moon P (ed.) 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Society (1977) Stephens R Nasser (1971) Stockwell A J (ed) BDEEP, Series B, Vol 3, Malaya, Pt II (1995) Tarling N The Fall of Imperial Britain in South-East Asia (New York, 1993) Taylor S et al (eds) Hanoverian Britain and Empire (Woodbridge, 1998) Teveth S Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground 1886–1948 (Boston, 1987) Thornton A P The Imperial Idea and its Enemies (1959) Tidrick K Empire and the English Character (1990) Tinker H (ed) Burma: The Struggle for Independence 1944–1948, I (1983) Vance N The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1997) Vatikiotis P J The Modern History of Egypt (1969) Wallace E The British Caribbean: From the Decline of Colonialism to the End of Federation (Toronto, 1977) Wasserstein B The British in Palestine (1978) Welensky R Welensky’s 4000 Days (1964) Welsh F A History of Hong Kong (1993) Whelan F G Edmund Burke and India (Pittsburgh, PA, 1996) White D W The American Century (1996) Williams E Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister (1969) Wolpert S Jinnah of Pakistan (New York, 1984) Wolpert S A New History of India (New York, 1977) Wood J R T The Welensky Papers (Durban, 1983) Woodcock G A Social History of Canada (New York, 1988) Woodham-Smith C The Great Hunger (1964 edn) Ziegler P Mountbatten (1986 edn) A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Piers Brendon is the author of more than a dozen books, including biographies of Churchill and Eisenhower, the best-selling Eminent Edwardians and The Dark Valley, a highly praised history of the 1930s He also writes for television and contributes frequently to the press Formerly Keeper of the Churchill Archives Centre, he is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge He lives in Cambridge, England ALSO BY PIERS BRENDON The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s The Windsors: A Dynasty Revealed The Motoring Century Our Own Dear Queen Ike: His Life and Times Winston Churchill: A Biography The Life and Death of Press Barons Eminent Edwardians: Four Figures Who Defined Their Age: Northcliffe, Balfour, Parkhurst, Baden-Powell Hawker of Morwenstow: Portrait of a Victorian Eccentric Hurrell Froude and the Oxford Movement THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A KNOPF Copyright © 2007 by Piers Brendon All rights reserved Published in the United States by Alfred A Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York www.aaknopf.com Originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, London Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brendon, Piers The decline and fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997 / by Piers Brendon — 1st American ed p cm “Originally published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, London”—T.p verso “This is a Borzoi book”—T.p verso Includes bibliographical references eISBN: 978-0-307-27028-3 Great Britain—Colonies—History Commonwealth countries—History Commonwealth (Organization)—History Imperialism—History Great Britain—Civilization I Title DA16.B675 909.0971241—dc22 v1.0 2008 2008014192 FOOTNOTES *1Suraj-ud-daulah meant “Lamp of the State” (though one Company director did ask whether Sir Roger Dowler was really a baronet) Nawab meant “deputy” (for the Mughal Emperor) The word was corrupted into “nabob,” a term also used to describe Britons who had made fortunes in the East Return to text †2East India Company coins worth about fifteen rupees, thirty shillings or seven dollars Return to text *3A lakh (of rupees) was 100, 000 (worth roughly £10, 000), whereas a crore was ten million Return to text *4At this stage he was still the Earl of Mornington Return to text *5New Holland was synonymous with Australia (a name not officially sanctioned until 1817) for almost a century Similarly Sydney was originally called Port Jackson and Tasmania was known as Van Diemen’s Land until 1853 For convenience their modern names are used here, though the generic term for the settlement, Botany Bay, is also employed Return to text *6Cartographical pretensions were almost as common as racial ones At the heart of the Mediterranean, Rome had been head of the world Medieval Christians, whose mappae mundi were geometrically shaped like a T inside an O, had set Jerusalem at the hub of the orbis terrarum Britain had taken pride of place since 1767 when the Nautical Almanack established Greenwich as the prime meridian of longitude, a convention internationally ratified in 1884; and imperial maps using Mercator’s projection exaggerated the size of the United Kingdom In 1944 Americans called for their maps to reflect the new distribution of power by placing the United States geographically at the centre of the world Return to text *7Despite the destruction, much of the fabric remained intact But the Chinese plundered its wreckage and the stones, like those of the Colosseum, were quarried for other projects Subsequent attempts at restoration caused further damage, as they did in Rome The final stage in the downfall of the Summer Palace was its Communist resurrection as the “Yuanming Yuan Ruins Park.” Return to text *8The slang term for sepoy mutineers, derived from the common Bengal Brahmin surname, Pande Return to text *9Dervish means “beggar” in Persian and, by extension, member of an Islamic religious fraternity Victorians applied the term to militant Sudanese Muslims and this usage is followed here Return to text *10Sala meant brother-in-law but implied sister-fucker Return to text *11The word “Burmese” denotes the predominant race in Burma, whereas all the country’s inhabitants are known as Burmans Similarly Sinhalese and Malay are ethnic terms, while Ceylonese and Malayans signify the total populations of their respective countries Return to text *12This is the highest summit in the mountain core of Ceylon, from which can be seen on a clear day the island’s entire coastline, nearly nine hundred miles in circumference Return to text *13At the behest of a Governor of Fiji, this provided the model for a new Government House at Suva Return to text *14The British Cameroons was a mandated territory administered as part of Nigeria Return to text *15“Ma” was not short for madam, or even for mother It was a term of respect in the Efik language for a woman whose word is final Return to text *16Dorothy Macmillan also had a faint moustache Seeing it in a photograph, a family member remarked: “At last I know what it was that Bob [Boothby] saw in her.” Return to text *17Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was normally called Rhodesia, unless being distinguished from Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia Return to text Table of Contents Title Page Dedication List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction The World Turned Upside Down The American Revolution and the Slave Trade An English Barrack in the Oriental Seas Britannia’s Indian Empire Exempt from the Disaster of Caste Australia, Canada and New Zealand To Stop Is Dangerous, to Recede, Ruin The Far East and Afghanistan Sacred Wrath Irish Famine and Indian Mutiny Spread the Peaceful Gospel—with the Maxim Gun Towards Conquest in Africa A Magnificent Empire Under the British Flag Cape to Cairo Barbarians Thundering at the Frontiers The Boer War and the Indian Raj The Empire, Right or Wrong Flanders, Iraq, Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge 10 Aflame with the Hope of Liberation Ireland and the Middle East 11 Englishmen Like Posing as Gods West and East 12 White Mates Black in a Very Few Moves Kenya and the Sudan 13 Spinning the Destiny of India The Route to Independence 14 That Is the End of the British Empire Singapore and Burma 15 The Aim of Labour Is to Save the Empire Ceylon and Malaya 16 A Golden Bowl Full of Scorpions The Holy Land 17 The Destruction of National Will Suez Invasion and Aden Evacuation 18 Renascent Africa The Gold Coast and Nigeria 19 Uhuru —Freedom Kenya and the Mau Mau 20 Kith and Kin Rhodesia and the Central African Federation 21 Rocks and Islands The West Indies and Cyprus 22 All Our Pomp of Yesterday The Falklands and Hong Kong Abbreviations Notes Sources A Note About the Author Also by Piers Brendon Copyright ... vital to the genesis of this volume and, with love and gratitude, I dedicate it to her INTRODUCTION The title of this book, with its echoes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman... scrutiny: the food and drink empire-builders consumed, the clothes they wore, the homes they built, the clubs they joined, the struggles they endured, the loot they acquired, the jubilees, durbars and. .. central theme the decline and fall of the British Empire between 1781 and 1997 Despite Gibbon’s long goodbye to the Roman Empire, it may seem paradoxical, even perverse, to trace the collapse of the