The History of Great Britain - The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries

How Britain Lost its Status as a World Power

• Leading Questions:

  • How did Britain lose her status as a world power?

  • What role did Britain play in the World Wars?

  • How did the British state develop in the twentieth century?

  • What are recent developments in British society and culture?

Remembering the First World War

• Remembrance Sunday

• The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey

• Menin Gate at Ypres

• Blackadder - film

Common Myths of the First World War

• The War as a development from innocence and enthusiasm to experience and disillusion?

• The Western Front – mud, rats, and stagnation

• ‘The Lost Generation’

• ‘The War to end all Wars’ or the war without aims?

The Political Results of WWI

• New political situation in Europe

  • E.g., Germany, Austria-Hungary lose territories; emergence of ‘new,’ independent countries

• Britain gains new territories in Arabia and Africa

  • The British Empire reaches its largest expansion

• Weakness of the British Empire becomes obvious

• 1931: Statute of Westminster

  • Legislative independence to parliaments in ‘white’ dominions

  • The ‘British Empire’ becomes the ‘British Commonwealth of Nations’

The War, Women, and Suffrage

• Women, gender roles, and the War

• The ‘New Woman’

• The Suffrage

  • All men over 21.

  • All women aged 30 and over who are:

    • householders

    • wives of householders, or

    • university graduates

  • 1928: suffrage to all women over 21

• Flappers

Britain in the Inter-War Years

• World War I – promises and expectations (‘a country fit for heroes’)

• The economy

  • Stagnation and success

  • 1926 General Strike

  • 1929: the Great Depression, 3 million unemployed

Britain in the Inter-War Years - Domestic Politics

• Growth of Labour Party

• Period of changing majorities

• Emergence of radical parties:

  • Communist Party and the British Union of Fascists (Oswald Mosley)

• British culture in the 1920s

  • The bright young things

  • Modernist Literature (e.g., Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Dorothy Richardson)

Ireland – Steps to Independence

• Long period of agitation for Home Rule (postponed in 1914)

• The First World War and the Easter Rising (1916)

  • Some 1600 volunteers occupy sites in Dublin on Easter Monday; aim: independence

  • British troops sent; rising ends bloodily; leaders executed

• Easter Rising William Butler Yeats, “Easter 1916”

• 1918: Sinn Fein win large majority of seats in Southern Ireland

• Sinn Fein refuse to go to Westminster, set up ‘parliament of the Irish Republic’ in Dublin

• Irish Volunteers, renamed Irish Republican Army, start attacks on Royal Irish Constabulary and British army → ‘War of Independence’ with violence on both sides

• Northern Ireland Unionists prefer to stay with UK

Ireland – Independence

• 1922: 26 southern counties form the ‘Irish Free State’ (retains dominion status in British Empire) 6 Northern counties: Home Rule with a parliament in Belfast

• 1922-1923: Civil War in Ireland (between pro-Treaty group and those who wanted total independence) finally: Treaty with status quo accepted

• Éamon de Valera, leading political figure in independent Ireland

• 1937: New constitution

  • Ireland becomes ‘a republic in all but name’

  • Northern Ireland claimed part of the nation

• 1949: Ireland becomes a republic and leaves the Commonwealth

• 1949: Ireland Act by British government – North to stay with UK as long as majority in favour

Britain in the Interwar Years – European Politics

• Great Britain and the Treaty of Versailles

• Appeasement Politics

  • Italy and Ethiopia

  • Neville Chamberlain and ‘peace for our time’ – Germany, the Sudetenland, and the Munich Conference

  • Germany and the invasion of Czechoslovakia

• 1939: Germany invades Poland → 3 Sept. 1939: Britain declares war on Germany

• Beginning of WWII for Great Britain

Britain and the Second World War

• Sept. 1939 to May 1940 – ‘The Phoney War’

• Failed campaign in Norway

• War still little impact on the Home Front

• June 1940 – Dunkirk evacuation after German invasion of Low Countries, Belgium, and France

• Winston Churchill replaces Neville Chamberlain as PM, refuses to negotiate ‘Finest Hour Speech’

• July-Sept. 1940: The Battle of Britain (fighter pilots, Spitfires)

• German invasion plans fail

• ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’ (Churchill)

• Autumn 1940: beginning of ‘The Blitz’

  • Bombing of towns and military targets

• Evacuation

• May 1941: Germany prepares to attack the Soviet Union

The Second World War – The Home Front – The People’s War

• All men between 19 and 41 called up to fight

• 1941: all unmarried women between 20 and 30 conscripted; work in Land Army, hospitals, factories …

• 1940: beginning of rationing (sinking of supply ships)

Britain and the Second World War

• 1941: Britain is joined by the Soviet Union and the US

• The War in the Pacific against Japan

• 1942: Fall of Singapore

• The War at Sea (Germans sink British supply ships)

• By 1942/3: British army in control of German army in North Africa

• July to August 1943: Allied landing in Sicily 1944: taking of Rome

• Bombing of Germany by British and American air force

• June 1944: D-Day (landing in Normandy)

• 1944: V1 and V2 Flying Bombs

• 8 May 1945: VE (Victory in Europe) Day

• August 1945: VJ (Victory in Japan) Day

Britain – The Second World War in Popular Memory

• ‘The Finest Hour’, ‘The People’s War’

• British victory; Britain as bastion against Nazi oppression

• Reality of life on the home front

The End of the Second World War

• Britain as one of the victors

• Occupation of Germany and Austria

• Member of Security Council in United Nations

• 1946: Britain decides to build atomic bomb

• British economy and the War

  • Marshall Plan: Britain receives $13.3$ bill

• The Cold War, NATO, and Warsaw Pact

Britain – The Welfare State

• World War II – ‘A fair share for all’ vs. continued rationing and poverty

• 1942: Beveridge Report suggests remedies for poverty, sickness, and unemployment

• 1944: Education Act provides for meals, free milk, and medical education

• May 1945: Labour victory 1940s and ‘50s: building of council houses

• National Health Service (1948) financed mainly through taxes

• Nationalization of coal mines, iron and steel industries

Britain after World War II

• 1950s ff.: Migration from former colonies

• 1950s: continued rationing

• 1951: Festival of Britain (symbolizes faith in future)

• 1960s: time of growing prosperity, consumerism, ‘swinging sixties,’ Beatles and Rolling Stones change in public morality (1968 end of theatre censorship, 1967 Sexual Offences Act)

• 1970s: time of economic problems, oil crisis, minor strikes, and inflation

• 1978: Winter of Discontent

• 1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes PM, policy of ‘liberalisation,’ privatization, monetarism, fighting the unions, end of traditional industries, importance of the ‘City’ (finance sector)

• 1982: Falklands War

• 1984/5: Discovery of new fields of North Sea Oil

• 1984/5: Minors’ Strike

• 1970s: Independence Movements in Wales and Scotland with referendums

• 1990: John Major becomes Prime Minister

• 1997: Labour victory under Tony Blair

  • ‘New Labour’ (against nationalisation), Devolution, Northern Ireland, reform of the House of Lords, War in Iraq, reforms in education and the NHS

Britain and the European Community

• Strong ties to US and the Commonwealth

• 1950: Britain refuses to join European Coal and Steel Community

• Economic fears in 1960s: Britain wishes to join EEC; French under Charles de Gaulle refuse

• 1973: Britain finally joins but retains a problematic relationship with the EC/EU

• Referendum on EC membership

• 1994: Channel Tunnel opened

Britain – The Loss of Empire

• World War II and the British Empire

• 1947: Independence of India

• 1950s and 1960s: African colonies become independent states and join the Commonwealth

• 1956: Suez Crisis – Humiliation of UK and France

• 1997: Hong Kong handed over to China

• 2013: Falklands referendum, trouble with Argentina continues

• Current issues: Gibraltar, Brexit, Empire 2.0, former colonies becoming republics, the Commonwealth after Elizabeth II

Northern Ireland

• Situation in Ireland

• Northern Ireland Catholics: disadvantages (political, economic, social)

• Protestant Unionists: want to stay with UK; fear of Catholic dominance

• Republic: most want united Ireland at this stage

• 1967: civil rights movement ends in violence

• 1969: British army sent in to establish peace, soon violence starts: IRA vs. British army

• 1972 ‘Bloody Sunday’: Civil Rights Marchers killed by British army, Northern Irish Parliament suspended, Northern Ireland ruled from Westminster

• 1973: Sunningdale Agreement

  • attempt to introduce power-sharing and a ‘Council of Ireland’ (with Irish co-operation)

  • Irish Republic concedes: Northern Ireland only part of Republic if the majority want this

• 1980s: time of sectarian violence (i.e., between Catholics and Protestants) IRA bombings in London

• 1993: Downing Street Declaration of Irish and British PMs – announce intention of solving Northern Irish question together EU important factor in peace negotiations

• 1994: ceasefire announced

• 1998: Belfast Agreement / Good Friday Agreement

  • Create Northern Ireland Assembly, a power-sharing executive, and Council of Ireland

  • Agreed on in referendums in North and South

  • Involvement of EU and US

• 1998ff.: Conflicts over disarmament

• 2002: Suspension of Assembly by British Parliament

• 2007: Government formed, including Ian Paisley (DUP, Democratic Unionist Party, as first minister) and Martin McGuiness (Sinn Féin, a Catholic, nationalist party, as deputy first minister)

• The conflict - continuing distrust and moments of progress

• paramilitary groups and violence

Northern Ireland Today

• The ‘Backstop’ as crucial question in Brexit negotiations

• Issue about possible boarder in the Irish Sea as opposed to on the Island

• Free movement of goods – who controls the boarders? ‘sausage war’

• Steps towards a possible Irish unification?

Britain in the 21st Century

• 2007: Gordon Brown becomes PM (Labour)

• 2010: General Election, Conservatives, and Liberal Democrats form a coalition government (David Cameron: PM) Austerity policy

• 2012: The Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee

• 2015: General Election, Conservative victory

• 2016: (June) Brexit Referendum

• Theresa May becomes PM (Tory)

• 2017: General Election, hung Parliament (conservatives lose their overall majority) Tories government with DUP toleration

• 2019: Boris Johnson (Tory) becomes PM after May resigns

• January 2020: Brexit – The UK leaves the EU, but a transition period applies

• January 2021: the UK finally leaves the EU

• negotiations continue …

• June 2022: Jubilee weekend, Platinum Jubilee Elizabeth II

• Sept.-Oct. 2022: Liz Truss as Prime Minster

• Sept. 2022: Death Elizabeth II

• Oct. 2022: Rishi Sunak becomes PM

• July 2024: General Election with Labour victory

Summary

• Rise and Fall of the British Empire

• Britain today

• The way to Devolution

• Britain and Europe