External Pressures on the British Empire

This is more of a question which will hopefully steer my research a bit:

Among the various discussions regarding the longevity and conduct of the colonial administrations within the British Empire, I got to thinking, if the external pressures facing the British Empire could be removed or mitigated, how much longer could it have lasted, and how would it have finally ended?

However, to butterfly or remove those external pressures, I need to know what they were in the main:

So far, the obvious ones: Financial burdens of WW1 left it creaky to say the least, WW2 was realistically the final nail in the coffin.
US post war agenda.
Could even just mitigating these be enough to postpone the inevitable?

Also, does anyone have any recommended reading or choices to avoid?

I want to keep the internal pressures - British and Empire public opinion and independence movements especially.

This will end up really quite dark as I won't be sugar coating the OTL events that remain or the events that take place ITTL either.

I have some rough ideas at the moment for the end state, but want to be sure that the build up is correct.
 
Keeping India is key. Once India goes, the rest of the Empire is mostly unprofitable and pointless (with the exception of Malaya, the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong).

Now just how you keep India is more problematic. By 1900 there was already a nationalist movement among educated Indians and by 1920 this had actually become a mass movement.

So either India needs to be kept down by force (impossible in the long run given the numbers involved) or it needs to be kept on side. How this is possible is a thornier question.
 
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, India was undeniably the Jewel in the Crown but the rest of the Empire was financially viable if much less lucrative. Even West Africa which was always the least profitable had Nigerian Oil, though that only came onstream after independence. Obviously fiascos like the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme were costly, in that case completely wiping out all gains for the previous 3 decades but even that disaster was mainly caused by the uniquely desperate circumstances of 1945, under normal circumstances it would never have been approved. The West Indies were a net loss maker with no real prospect of improvement but the sums were relatively small, the settler colonies of Kenya and Rhodesia were also loss makers from a Treasury point of view but were very profitable for the settlers and could probably have commanded public support and this government subsidy for longer than OTL. Malaya, Sing and HK were all very profitable though I'm not sure about Brunei and Burma. The various Pacific Islands cost basically nothing and many of them had guano so they were a net benefit. Cyprus and Malta were loss makers but strategically vital, just like the Suez Canal. The Middle East ran at cost but would have turned into a massive revenue earner if Britain had held on and ensured that BP and Shell got the contracts for exploiting the UAE and Kuwait. Bechuanaland and Uganda didn't cost much and probably was a net gains when you factor in trade. Somalia was another strategically useful loss maker.

All in all the British Empire minus India was profitable as a whole and most of the individual possessions were worth keeping on their own merits, the only real exceptions were Somalia and West Africa bar the Niger Delta which should have been dumped or better yet never acquired
 
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I see India as an internal pressure.
I'm potentially looking at finding a way for Britain to stay out of WW1 initially, and then either join at a later date, or limit the British participation so to limit the financial damage the Empire suffered. This may mean a better time of it for Ireland, but maybe not so for the others.

The world will still be hit by the great depression and I have no intention of lessening the effects of this this either so a WW2 Analogue will also be present.

It's external pressures to the Empire I need to asses before hand.
 
I think, OP, that you have pretty much got the primary external pressures nailed down: two world wars and two super powers which are unwilling to accept colonialism. There isn't a whole lot else which was pressuring the empire from the outside.


So either India needs to be kept down by force (impossible in the long run given the numbers involved) or it needs to be kept on side. How this is possible is a thornier question.

I don't think its very possible. The only way I can think to keep India on side is by throwing autonomy at it until it stops complaining, at which point it will probably be independent. An 'Imperial Federation' of the white dominions and maybe an EFTA/NATO type organisation which includes India, Malaya, Nigeria, etc is probably the best fate the British Empire can hope for itself.
 
An 'Imperial Federation' of the white dominions and maybe an EFTA/NATO type organisation which includes India, Malaya, Nigeria, etc is probably the best fate the British Empire can hope for itself.

Compared to the actual Commonwealth, a combination of an economic alliance/free trade area with a military alliance (perhaps a joint command like NATO) is a huge victory for fans of the Empire but it suffers from the same flaws as true Imperial Federation. Namely, why should free sovereign states choose to form such a grouping. Why does Uganda want to be allied with New Zealand? (NATO was created by the Soviets, the EU is meant to prevent the French and Germans from shooting each other or something...)
 
Compared to the actual Commonwealth, a combination of an economic alliance/free trade area with a military alliance (perhaps a joint command like NATO) is a huge victory for fans of the Empire but it suffers from the same flaws as true Imperial Federation. Namely, why should free sovereign states choose to form such a grouping. Why does Uganda want to be allied with New Zealand? (NATO was created by the Soviets, the EU is meant to prevent the French and Germans from shooting each other or something...)

Yup- plus not all of them have shared economic interests.
 

katchen

Banned
I think that Lionel Curtis hit the nail on the head and that he is worth researching. The wrong turn that the UK made in its Empire was to turn the English settler colonies (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) into self-governing dominions instead of taking full advantage of advances in communication and making them fully part of the Westminster System with full representation in both Houses of Parliament. If England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Newfoundland, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony and Natal are all one nation, even if noncontiguous, this is a very powerful common market with full representation and accountability and representation for all constituent parts. It would easily be the equal of and able to surpass the United States in terms of the ability to absorb and socialize and assimilate and anglicize immigrants and to weather a Great Depression or even a World War. And to be the world's number one power for the next hundred years even while giving India-Burma-Malaya it's independence. It might possibly be able to assimilate the populations of Rhodesia and East African Protectorate, Somaliland and Aden Protectorate Gambia, Gold Coast and Sierra Leone as well, though I have my doubts about Nigeria. The UK would be well advised not to go to war with Orange Free State and South African Republic but let them remain independent enclaves.
 
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