British Empire

B

4

Burma

During the 19th century, Britain was using its strong armies in India to expand into Southeast Asia. The Burmese Konbaung dynasty had expanded the borders of Burma (now Myanmar) greatly, until they began to bump up against British India. Attempted Burmese incursions into India resulted in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), in which the Burmese were overpowered by the British and were forced to cede several coastal areas to them. Over the course of the Second and Third Anglo-Burmese Wars (1852 and 1885) Britain established its dominance in the region, conquering all of Burma. In 1886 Burma was officially made a province of India.

B

5

The Beginning of Responsible Government

An empire based on free trade required less regulation than one based on mercantilist principles. As a result, the concept of responsible government, or government by the citizens of a colony, emerged. It was applied in the British North American colonies during the 1840s, and in 1867 Canada was confederated. Confederation allowed Britain to withdraw its military presence while retaining control of foreign affairs and external defense. In the 1850s the new Australian colonies of South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, and Queensland that had been established in the 1830s and 1840s were accorded responsible government, along with the existing colony of New South Wales. However, their fragmented character delayed federation until 1901. Britain did not grant responsible government to its colonies in southern Africa because of tensions between the settlers and the native Africans. However, in the 1850s Britain withdrew from overseeing the interior republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

The mid-1800s was an era of relative stability in imperial affairs, without unbridled expansion overseas. However, Britain did continue its aggressive trading policy, which often led to conflict. The primary examples of this were the conflicts with China over the British importation of opium into China, which led to the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century and the British acquisition of Hong Kong in 1841.

B

6

New Imperialism

The government of Benjamin Disraeli (1874-1880) adopted a more active British policy overseas. This so-called New Imperialism was characterized by much more aggressive imperial expansion and defense of British interests overseas. Though it was sometimes the result of local instability, as in 1882 when British troops occupied Egypt in order to preserve control of the Suez Canal, it was more often fueled by the British government’s desire to extend its empire.

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After the occupation of Egypt, a race to establish colonies in Africa ensued. Britain, which competed principally against France and Germany, made a series of claims in West Africa in the 1880s, mainly in the Niger River Valley. Additional colonies were established in southern Africa, where the activities of Cecil Rhodes led to the annexation of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1885 and the founding of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1890. The most resolute opponents of British expansion were the Boers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in southern Africa, until the British finally defeated them in the Boer War (1899-1902).

In East Africa, British explorers were active from the 1850s in the search for the source of the Nile, and in 1864 Sir Samuel Baker discovered Lake Albert; the acquisition of Uganda in 1894 eventually secured Britain’s political dominance in the region. About the same time, British settlement in Kenya began.

C

20th Century

The British government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who took office in 1905, followed a less active imperial style. Britain granted self-government to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1907, which paved the way for the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910.

C

1

World War I and the Empire at its Height

During World War I (1914-1918) the British Empire remained essentially united. The Dominions, as those colonies granted responsible government were now called, were loyal to Britain at first, apart from a minor and easily repressed Boer revolt in 1914. However, the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in 1916 marked the beginning of an increasing desire for independence in many of the colonies.

Troops from the Dominion countries were prominent in World War I, but as the sacrifices of war increased after 1916, loyalty to Britain waned. Conscription, a system by which private citizens were forced to join the armed services, was rejected in Australia in 1917 and was strongly opposed in French Québec.

The war expanded the British Empire to its greatest extent. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 gave Britain most of the German Empire in Africa, while the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East led to the British acquisition of Palestine and Iraq in 1918.

However, the war also accelerated support for nationalist movements in the colonies, and the British government found that it could do little to stop this trend. After World War I Britain was exhausted, and the empire was overextended. As a result, during the 1920s and 1930s Britain searched for policies that would both reduce the cost of the empire and the risk of its falling apart. It granted independence to Egypt in 1922 and to Iraq in 1932. The demands of the Dominions for full constitutional autonomy were granted in the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which eliminated all control by the British Parliament over dominion government. The statute also established the British Commonwealth of Nations as an association of equal and independent states united by common allegiance to the British Crown. After the Irish Revolution (1912-1922), southern Ireland had been granted dominion status as the Irish Free State, though in 1937 it withdrew from the empire and became the Ireland.

In India discontent with British rule increased throughout this period, culminating in the Amritsar Massacre, in which the British army fired indiscriminately at demonstrators, killing nearly 400. Though the British colonial government passed constitutional reforms in 1919 and 1935, tensions remained high. In its African colonies, Britain did not as yet have to cope with nationalism and concentrated on administering the populations indirectly and inexpensively through existing local institutions. Nevertheless, there was occasional African resistance to colonial control, especially where the British levied new taxes or interfered with traditional practices.

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