When was the 'last breath' of the British Empire?

Question

I know it still exists (sort of, in a very minor way), but when was the defining last moment, if at all, of the British Colonial Empire?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Probably the last gasp of the Empire was the Suez Crisis of 1956 when President Nassar of Egypt nationalised the Suez canal.

Fearing that he was a middle eastern Hitler, Prime Minister Anthony Eden (Churchill's foreign secretary in WWII) sent a large force of British warships to the area.
However, the US (like the good allies they are) disagreed with us and threatened to flood the money markets with British currency and thus devalue the Pound. This forced Eden into an embarrassing climbdown and he turned the ships around. It forced him from office.

This remained in the minds of many in the British government, so when LBJ demanded help from Britain in Vietnam he was politely refused.

Answer 2

Good Question, many volumes written about this subject. What most people do not know is that the British Empire was at its territorial height in 1921. It was probably least able to defend it at this time as the Japanese and Germans were to prove later. At any rate, World War II saw many nations participate in their own liberation from Axis powers and they were not about to trade that back in for British rule. The United States and the Soviet Union were the paramount powers by this time and Britains economy was shattered and her people exhausted. At that point it was merely a matter of time. The colonies began to break away, the largest being India, and Britain neither had the capital nor the desire to stop them. The so-called White Colonies - like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, maintain the Monarch as Head of State, but she has no power except for her influence over some of the old timers at the RSL.

Answer 3

You answered your own question. It still exists. It depends on how you set the terms of your question. If you see the commonwealth as an 'Empire' then it does still exist.

I would say though, that true British Imperialism ended after the First World War, along with all the big European Empires such as Prussia, Austro-Hungarian etc. It was the First World War that really sealed its fate. Although the Empire held a great deal of territory, world trade dropped from one quater to one sixth by 1919.

After this event the Empire went into inevitable decline in terms of trade and influence, with most territories becoming independent after World War Two

Answer 4

I wasn't alive then yet my mum and dad were and it truly a wide effect, really on my father, who become evacuated far flung from Glasgow. i don't sense any more suitable happy with Britains WW2 record than about the different historic adventure. I wasn't in contact. As for the way human beings dealt with it, i wager there are some significant factors. before each and everything, they extremely did no longer have a lot selection. They knew that any deals made with Hitler might want to in basic terms put off the inevitable conflict and obtainable invasion so that they fought for his or her lives and did each and everything they could to resist him. although, the way they mobilised the rustic's components, replaced their life and did not disintegrate less than the relentless bombing (everywhere in the rustic, no longer in basic terms London) become very incredible and shows how human beings can upward push to a undertaking contained in the face of extreme adversity.

Answer 5

I would have to say that the defining last moment occurred with the beginning of world war 2. The british were so spent after they had little or no chance of holding on to the majority of their overseas territories

Answer 6

1957 saw the end of the empire and the begining of the coomonwealth - there is no empire only a commonwealth which is not the same because the colonies of the commonwealth do fall under direct rule of the crown or government of britain but are simply affiliated with it with political and economic reasons.

Answer 7

The British still have an Empire - The Shepherds Bush Empire

Answer 8

Handing over Burma by Lord Mountbatton . The last gasp of Empire

Answer 9

I could make an argument for these 2 days:
1. The evacuation at Dunkirk (4-Jun-1940)
Arguably the worst defeat in their history.

2. The day Patton landed at Morocco (8-Nov-1942)
The start of their first major dependance on a foreign power/ally.

.

Answer 10

I think WWI1 was the last throws of the British empire that's when the average man knew the world had changed.

But of course it took till the next war for the politicians to to wise up by 1945 it was all over and everyone but the British aristocracy knew it.

Unfortunately due to in breeding and low gene pool they still have their a"""ses in the wind shouting tallyho even when all the foxes have changed to an urban environment