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The Impact of the Commonwealth on Churchill's Europe

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The Impact of the Commonwealth on Churchill's Europe Comillas Journal of International Relations | nº 07 | 032-042 [2016] [ISSN 2386-5776] 32 DOI: cir.i07.y2016.004 THE IMPACT OF THE COMMONWEALTH ON CHURChill’S EUROPE El impacto de la Commonwealth en la Europa de Churchill Cat Wilson E-mail: [email protected] Autor Focusing from the time of his electoral defeat in July 1945 until the end of his second term as Prime Minister (October 1951-April 1955), this article examines the impact the Common- Abstract wealth had on Churchill’s Europe. Following the end of the Second World War Churchill’s Europe was fragile, yet not broken beyond all repair. Rather than weaken world organisations, such as the United Nations or a united post-war Europe, Churchill argued that the British Commonwealth would strengthen such liaisons. Analysing Churchill’s key relationships with the heads of the Commonwealth, reveal him to have been a true European – where security and democracy took precedence. His realism and pragmatism in the face of ever-changing, ever- evolving world-wide post-war alliances, where the Commonwealth arguably played a significant role, offers a stark contrast to the more common image of Churchill the “die-hard” imperialist. Churchill; Commonwealth; India; Nehru; Australia; Menzies; Curtin; South Africa; Smuts; Key words New Zealand; Fraser; Holland; ANZUS; America; Canada; St. Laurent; Cold War; Korean War; Malayan Emergency. Churchill; Commonwealth; India; Nehru; Australia; Menzies; Curtin; Sudáfrica; Smuts; Nueva Zelanda; Fraser; Holland; ANZUS; América; Canadá; St. Laurent; Guerra Fría; Guerra de Corea; Emergencia Malaya. Recibido: 22-7-2016. Aceptado: 26-11-2016. Fechas Comillas Journal of International Relations | nº 07 | 032-042 [2016] [ISSN 2386-5776] 33 Centrándonos en el periodo de tiempo comprendido entre la derrota electoral en julio de 1945 has- ta el final del segundo mandato como primer ministro de Winston Churchill, este artículo examina Resumen el impacto que la Commonwealth tuvo en la Europa de Churchill. Después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial la Europa de Churchill era frágil, pero no aún no estaba descompuesta y sin remedio. Le- jos de debilitar las organizaciones internacionales como las Naciones Unidas o la Europa unida de la postguerra, Churchill defendió que la Commonwealth reforzaría dichas relaciones. Analizando las relaciones fundamentales entre Churchill y los dirigentes de la Commonwealth, revelan que Churchill fue un verdadero europeo, para quien la seguridad y la democracia tienen prioridad. Su realismo y pragmatismo ante las alianzas internacionales de la postguerra, que se caracterizaban por ser siempre cambiantes y en continua evolución y en las que la Commonwealth desempeñaba un papel importante, ofrecían un duro contraste a la imagen común de Churchill, la de un impe- rialista rígido y tradicional. During the first two years of the Second World War, and out of abject necessity, Churchill During the first isolated Britain from Europe. His first tenure as Britain’s wartime Prime Minister is enduringly two years of the examined, re-visited and re-written. Despite serious ill-health for the majority of his second, Second World War, peacetime, term as Prime Minister, he remained undimmed by age and his vision of a Europe where each country was free from tyranny and shared democratic ideals became his focus. and out of abject Churchill described the less fortunate “wide areas” of a post-Second World War Europe as a necessity, Churchill “quivering mass of tormented, hungry, care-worn and bewildered human beings”. He urged isolated Britain from the building of a “kind of United States of Europe” which, working in concert with the United Nations, would prevent a return to the wartime Dark Ages (Churchill, 1948). Whether Britain Europe was to be a nominal member of this European United States, or its leader, was a matter which even Churchill himself could not fully fix upon; not only because “consistency of opinion in a career of that length is hardly to be expected”, but also due to the changing political and economic climate which affected Europe, the British Commonwealth, and its world-wide allies (Beloff). The most obvious time when the Commonwealth impacted on Churchill’s Europe was during the world wars – phenomenal episodes in world history where Dominion and Imperial troops played significant roles in the Allied victories. In contrast, this article looks at the extent of the impact the Commonwealth had on Churchill’s Europe from his electoral defeat in July 1945 until the end of his second term as Prime Minister (October 1951-April 1955). The decade which spanned 1945-1955 witnessed three major events: the development of the Cold War; the inevitable decline of the British Empire; and the formation of the Commonwealth – occurrences upon which Churchill had a profound effect. This article examines Churchill’s post-war vision of Europe, as set-out within a few of his key post-war speeches, and analyses the extent to which the advent of Indian independence affected not only the new Commonwealth, but also whether the post-war Commonwealth as a whole affected Churchill’s Europe during his term as peace-time Prime Minister. It truly was a “crippled, broken world” in which Churchill was living and writing during the early to mid-1920s (Churchill, 1923). Following the Great War, the Europe he had known was scarred both politically and geographically. In an article for the Saturday Evening Post, Comillas Journal of International Relations | nº 07 | 032-042 [2016] [ISSN 2386-5776] 34 published in 1930, Churchill called for the creation of a United States of Europe in which Britain would be “interested and associated, but not absorbed” by it1. This piece was written at a time when the British Empire was considered to be the largest and strongest of all empires, and when Europe was still recovering from the Great War. The “gathering storm” of the 1930s culminated in the Second World War – a war in which Churchill took the helm – and one which saw a continued, if not greater, contribution from the Dominions and Imperial troops to British and the Allied success. Following his unexpected exit from Downing Street, Churchill settled into the frantic rhythm of combining the literary production of his memoirs, entitled The Second World War, with his duty as Leader of the Conservative Party, as well as being the revered “Leader of Humanity” – as depicted in one of David Low’s most memorable cartoons Following the end (Low, 1945). It was in the immediate post-war era that the once pink shaded areas on the of the Second world map began to show signs of a soon-to-be rapidly reduced British Empire. Churchill’s World War carefully constructed image as a die-hard imperialist waned in the face of the British Empire’s ever certain decline and as the political temperature dropped from a hot into a Cold War, his Churchill’s Europe attention turned once more to Europe. was fragile, yet not Following the end of the Second World War Churchill’s Europe was fragile, yet not broken broken beyond all beyond all repair. It was under the mantle of “leader of humanity” that he gave his often- repair quoted speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri on 5 March 1946. He called for the English-speaking peoples to maintain a “fraternal association” in order to combat the threat of the “iron curtain” that had descended “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic”. This fraternal association would help maintain a “new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast”. A third “new war”, Churchill claimed, was not “inevitable”, and Europe’s future peace and security was intertwined with the fraternal association of the English-speaking people as well as the strength and number of the British Empire and Commonwealth (Churchill, 1948, pp. 93-105). Churchill would later speak of how the “larger synthesis” of a Europe united through democratic processes would only survive if it were founded upon “natural” groupings; the main group to which he referred was the “Commonwealth of Nations”. He argued that rather than weaken world organisations, such as the United Nations or a united post-war Europe, the British Commonwealth strengthened such liaisons (Churchill, 1948, p. 200). By the end of 1946, Churchill’s dedication to the British Empire was tested as Indian independence became an ever-closer and looming certainty. Churchill had a long, complex, and often emotionally charged relationship with India, its Nationalist leaders, and others who believed Indian Independence was necessary2. He may have privately pronounced that the forthcoming independence for India was breaking his heart, but he was nonetheless resigned to 1 Article by Churchill, quoted in Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, An Idea Conquers the World, London 1953, pp. 162- 163. Saturday Evening Post, 15 February 1930. 2 See: Arnn, L. (2003). India in recent historiography: Perhaps Churchill believed in real liberation, Finest Hour: Journal of the Churchill Centre and Societies, 118 (2003), p. 22-3; Ziegler, P. (1996). The Transfer of Power in India. In R. Crosby Kemper (ed.), Winston Churchill: resolution, defiance, magnanimity, good will, Columbia: University of Missouri Press; Gopal, S. (1993). Churchill and India. In Robert Blake and Wm. Roger Louis (eds), Churchill: A Major New Assessment of his Life in Peace and War (p. 457-72). Oxford; Bridge, C. (1987). Churchill and Indian Political Freedom, Indo- British Review, 13 (2), p. 26-30; M.S. Venkataramani and B.K. Shrivastava, (1993). Roosevelt-Gandhi- Churchill: America and the Last Phase of India’s Freedom Struggle New Delhi: Radiant Publishers; Robin James Moore, (1979). Churchill, Cripps and India, 1939-1945. Oxford: OUP. Comillas Journal of International Relations | nº 07 | 032-042 [2016] [ISSN 2386-5776] 35 the situation (AMEL 2/2/4)3.
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