WI: Short Second World War - Does Britain cling to its Empire?

Now, what if the Second World War was dealt quickly with Britain victorious, not bankrupted and not exhausted. How this is achieved does not need to concern in this regard, possibilities may range from Stalin breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and not supplying raw materials and Germany failing the ensuing 1940 campaign with a Franco-British victory in 1941 to radically revamped French Army rolling into Rhineland in 1939.

Without all the exhaustion, would Britain try to cling upon it's empire until the very last moment in Portuguese style or were the prewar trends already too strong?
 

King Thomas

Banned
They might let go of India, whilst trying to hold onto Africa and the other parts that were directly ruled by the Empire.
 
Would a Britain that isen't weakened have made India independent as a true part of the Commonwealth a la Australia or South Africa rather then giving them Commonwealth status as a face saving way to leave India quickly and cheaply.
Perhaps no Partition? That alone would change alot.
 
India is probably already too far gone to have any hope of keeping it in the Empire baring the use nuclear weapons to “keep it in line” which I don’t see happening. And once India is gone for the most part the rest of the Empire is superfluous and will likely be granted independence after a phased withdrawal which will likely happen slightly later than OTL and take a bit longer as well.
 
I concur with Draco. To me the devil is in the details, and, oddly, what happens in the Middle East.
 
The Atlantic Charter mandated Britain to give their colonies the option of independence, but I think the age of Empires was on its way out from the early 20th century (e.g. Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian) with the rise of the concept of the nation state.

The new empires - USA, EU, G7? - are based more on shared economic benefit than the ownership of territory and extortion of trade tariffs.

China has/is making the transition from the repressive style to the economic style relatively smoothly. If Britain could have done this, then there would have been no need to join the EU and wealth in Britain would still be associated with west coast ports, as opposed to the south east!
 
The Atlantic Charter mandated Britain to give their colonies the option of independence, but I think the age of Empires was on its way out from the early 20th century (e.g. Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian) with the rise of the concept of the nation state.

The new empires - USA, EU, G7? - are based more on shared economic benefit than the ownership of territory and extortion of trade tariffs.

China has/is making the transition from the repressive style to the economic style relatively smoothly. If Britain could have done this, then there would have been no need to join the EU and wealth in Britain would still be associated with west coast ports, as opposed to the south east!
There likely won’t be an Atlantic Charter in this timeline as there’s no need if the war is already over in ‘41. Also with India on the way out and Canada having rejected Imperial Preference stronger economic ties with the rest of Europe by far makes the most sense as the rest of the Empire represents too small of a portion of the global economy to really be a viable alternative.
 
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