Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface and acknowledgments
- Introduction: the project of an Empire
- Part I Towards ‘The Sceptre of the World’: the elements of Empire in the long nineteenth century
- Part II ‘The great liner is sinking’: the British world-system in the age of war
- 8 The war for Empire, 1914–1919
- 9 Making imperial peace, 1919–1926
- 10 Holding the centre, 1927–1937
- 11 The strategic abyss, 1937–1942
- 12 The price of survival, 1943–1951
- 13 The third world power, 1951–1959
- 14 Reluctant retreat, 1959–1968
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
8 - The war for Empire, 1914–1919
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Preface and acknowledgments
- Introduction: the project of an Empire
- Part I Towards ‘The Sceptre of the World’: the elements of Empire in the long nineteenth century
- Part II ‘The great liner is sinking’: the British world-system in the age of war
- 8 The war for Empire, 1914–1919
- 9 Making imperial peace, 1919–1926
- 10 Holding the centre, 1927–1937
- 11 The strategic abyss, 1937–1942
- 12 The price of survival, 1943–1951
- 13 The third world power, 1951–1959
- 14 Reluctant retreat, 1959–1968
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The longer war
1914 was the watershed between two ages of empire. In the long nineteenth century after 1815, the British world-system had developed as if there were no danger of a general war in Europe or across the world. Despite the Crimean War, the wars of Italian and German unification and the Franco-Prussian War, this had proved a reasonable assumption. The results can be seen from a glance at the map. Britain's settlements, possessions, spheres and commercial property were scattered broadcast across the globe. Whatever the constitutional niceties, in the ‘formal’ empire colonial rule was highly devolved: to settler politicians in the white dominions; to imperial officials in the rest. Devolution assumed that their defence would fall to the Royal Navy, or be made redundant by its global reach. The exception was India which paid for its own standing army and much more beside (two-thirds, in fact, of the Empire's regular army). Imperial rivalry was real, and posed a threat to Britain's interests. But the threat was usually more regional (and Near Eastern) than general. Much of its force was deflected by the partition diplomacy of the 1880s and 1890s. As a consequence, across large parts of the world, British influence could be maintained by the ‘soft power’ of commerce and culture. This had made possible the coexistence of imperialism and liberalism in Britain, in the settler colonies and even, more fitfully, in India.
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- Information
- The Empire ProjectThe Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970, pp. 305 - 358Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009