Interwar Britain

Historian Arthur Marwick sees a radical transformation of British society resulting from the Great War, a deluge that swept away many old attitudes and brought in a more egalitarian society. He sees the famous literary pessimism of the 1920s as misplaced, arguing there were major positive long-term consequences of the war for British society. He points to an energised self-consciousness among workers that quickly built up the Labour Party, the coming of partial women's suffrage, and an acceleration of social reform and state control of the economy. He sees a decline of deference toward the aristocracy and established authority in general, and the weakening among youth of traditional restraints on individual moral behaviour. The chaperone faded away; village chemists sold contraceptives. Marwick says that class distinctions softened, national cohesion increased, and British society became more equal during the period.

Political history

Lloyd George Coalition government: 1918–1922

The 1918 general election produced a landslide victory for the coalition government headed by David Lloyd George, who promised "a fit country for heroes to live in". The majority of coalition MPs were Conservative and the election also saw the decline of H. H. Asquith's Liberals and the rise of the Labour Party.

Wartime regulations such as state direction of industry, price controls, the control of raw materials and foreign trade were abolished, and trade unions resurrected restrictive practices. However, food rationing remained until 1921. Prices increased twice as fast during 1919 than they had during the war and this was followed by wage increases. High taxation was regarded as the cause of wasteful government expenditure and in 1921 an Anti-Waste movement was launched, which attracted considerable support for its attacks on "wasteful" public spending. The government appointed Sir Eric Geddes head of the committee on government expenditure and in February 1922 its report was published, which recommended spending cuts on the armed forces and social services. The "Geddes Axe" on government spending and the end of the postwar economic boom in 1922 had made it impossible to fulfil the promises of reconstruction and "homes for heroes".

Enlarging democracy

The Representation of the People Act 1918 finally gave Britain universal manhood suffrage at age 21, with no property qualifications. Even more dramatically it opened up woman suffrage for most women over the age of 30. In 1928, all women were covered on the same terms as men. With the emergence of revolutionary forces, most notably in Bolshevik Russia and Socialist Germany, but also in Hungary, Italy and elsewhere, revolution to overthrow established elites and aristocracies was in the air. The Labour Party largely controlled working-class politics, and it strongly supported the government in London and opposed violent revolution. Conservatives were especially worried about "Red Clydeside" in industrial Scotland. Their fears were misplaced, for there was no organised attempt at any revolution.

Nevertheless, there were concerns about republicanism. The king and his top advisers were deeply concerned about the republican threat to the British monarchy, so much so that it was a factor in the king's decision not to rescue his cousin, the overthrown Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Nervous conservatives associated republicanism with the rise of socialism and the growing labour movement. Their concerns, although exaggerated, resulted in a redesign of the monarchy's social role to be more inclusive of the working class and its representatives, a dramatic change for George, who was most comfortable with naval officers and landed gentry. In fact the socialists by 1911 no longer believed in their anti-monarchy slogans and took a wait-and-see attitude toward George V. They were ready to come to terms with the monarchy if it took the first step. During the war George took that step; he made nearly 300 visits to shipyards and munitions factories, chatting with and congratulating ordinary workers on their hard work for the war effort. He adopted a more democratic stance that crossed class lines and brought the monarchy closer to the public. The king also cultivated friendly relations with leading Labour party politicians and trade union officials. George V's abandonment of social aloofness conditioned the royal family's behaviour and enhanced its popularity during the economic crises of the 1920s and for over two generations thereafter. For example, in 1924 the king proved willing, in the absence of a clear majority for any one of the three parties, to replace Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin with Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Party prime minister. King George's tactful and understanding reception of the MacDonald government allayed the suspicions of the party's supporters throughout the nation.

Ireland

An armed insurrection by Irish republicans known as the Easter Rising took place in Dublin during Easter Week, 1916. It was quickly suppressed by the Army. The government responded with harsh repression, 2,000 arrests, and quick execution of 15 leaders. The Catholic Irish then underwent a dramatic change of mood, and shifted to demand vengeance and independence. In 1917 David Lloyd George called the 1917–18 Irish Convention in an attempt to settle the outstanding Home Rule for Ireland issue. It had little support. The upsurge in republican sympathies in Ireland following the Easter Rising coupled with Lloyd George's disastrous attempt to extend conscription to Ireland in April 1918 led to the wipeout of the old Irish Home Rule Party at the December 1918 election. They had supported the British war effort and were then displaced by Sinn Féin, which had mobilised grass-roots opposition to helping the British rule. Sinn Féin MPs did not take up their seats in the British Parliament, instead setting up their own new parliament in Dublin, and immediately declared an Irish Republic.

British policy was confused and contradictory, as the cabinet could not decide on war or peace, sending in enough force to commit atrocities that angered Catholics in Ireland and America, and Liberals in Britain, but not enough to suppress the rebels outside the cities. Lloyd George waxed hot and cold, denouncing murderers one day, but eventually negotiating with them. He sent in 40,000 soldiers as well as newly formed para-military units—the "Black and Tans" and the Auxiliaries—to reinforce the professional police (the Royal Irish Constabulary). British firepower prevailed in the cities forcing the Irish Republican Army (IRA) (the paramilitary force of Sinn Féin) into hiding. However, the IRA controlled much of the countryside and set up an alternative local government. The British units were poorly coordinated while Michael Collins designed a highly effective organisation for the IRA that used informers to destroy the British intelligence system by assassinating its leadership. Although it was called "Irish War of Independence" historians generally agree that it was quite unlike the later Irish Civil War that was fought in 1922–23 between the forces of Collins and Éamon de Valera. The 1919–21 clash "was no war in any conventional sense of the term, but a highly contingent, very small-scale and low-intensity conflict in which assassination was as important as ambush or fixed battle."

Lloyd George finally solved the crisis with the Government of Ireland Act 1920 which partitioned Ireland into Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in May 1921. Sinn Féin won control of the south and agreed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 with Irish leaders. Collins took power when de Valera refused to sign and led a breakaway faction. Under the treaty southern Ireland seceded in 1922 to form the Irish Free State. Meanwhile, the Unionists under Edward Carson controlled Ulster and Northern Ireland remained loyal to London. By 1922 the Irish situation had stabilised, and no longer played a major role in British politics. Nevertheless, disputes sputtered for decades regarding the exact relationship to the monarchy, a trade war in the 1930s, and British use of naval ports. The Irish Free State cut many of its ties to Britain in 1937. As the Republic of Ireland it was one of a handful of neutral European nations during the Second World War.

Conservative interlude and Baldwin: 1922–1924

The Lloyd George ministry fell apart in 1922 after Conservative MPs voted to end their membership of the Coalition at the Carlton Club meeting of 19 October. Bonar Law became prime minister of a Conservative government and won the general election with a manifesto that promised spending cuts and a non-interventionist foreign policy. However, he resigned in May 1923 because of ill health and was replaced by Stanley Baldwin. Baldwin, as leader of the Conservative Party (1923–37) and as Prime Minister (in 1923–24, 1924–29 and 1935–37), dominated British politics. His mixture of strong social reforms and steady government proved a powerful election combination, with the result that the Conservatives governed Britain either by themselves or as the leading component of the National Government. In the general election of 1935 Baldwin's was the last government to win over 50% of the vote. Baldwin's political strategy was to polarise the electorate so that voters would choose between the Conservatives on the right and the Labour Party on the left, squeezing out the Liberals in the middle. The polarisation did take place and while the Liberals remained active under Lloyd George, they won few seats. Baldwin's reputation soared in the 1920s and 1930s, but crashed after 1940 as he was blamed for the appeasement policies toward Germany, and as Churchill was made the Conservative icon by his admirers. Since the 1970s Baldwin's reputation has recovered somewhat. Ross McKibbin finds that the political culture of the interwar period was built around an anti-socialist middle class, supported by the Conservative leaders, especially Baldwin.

Having won an election just the year before, Baldwin's Conservative party had a comfortable majority in the Commons and could have waited another four years, but the government was concerned about unemployment. As Bonar Law had pledged that there would be no change in the country's fiscal system without a second general election, Baldwin felt the need to receive a new mandate from the people to introduce tariffs, which he hoped would secure the home market for domestic manufacturers and reduce unemployment. Oxford historian (and Conservative MP) J. A. R. Marriott depicts the gloomy national mood:

The times were still out of joint. Mr. Baldwin had indeed succeeded in negotiating (January 1923) a settlement of the British debt to the United States, but on terms which involved an annual payment of £34 million, at the existing rate of exchange. The French remained in the Ruhr. Peace had not yet been made with Turkey; unemployment was a standing menace to national recovery; there was continued unrest among the wage-earners, and a significant strike among farm labourers in Norfolk. Confronted by these difficulties, convinced that economic conditions in England called for a drastic change in fiscal policy, and urged thereto by the Imperial Conference of 1923, Mr. Baldwin decided to ask the country for a mandate for Preference and Protection.

The result of the election, however, backfired on Baldwin, who lost a host of seats to the pro-free trade Labour and the Liberal parties. The Conservatives remained the largest party with 258 seats, compared to Labour's 191 seats and 158 for the Liberals. Baldwin remained prime minister until the government lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons on 21 January 1924, when Labour and the Liberals combined to vote against the government. The next day Baldwin resigned the premiership and Ramsay MacDonald formed the first Labour government.

First Labour government: 1924

Although the Labour government lacked a majority, it passed the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924, which increased government subsidies to local authorities to build municipal housing for rent for low paid workers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden balanced the budget through cuts in expenditure and taxation.

The Labour government officially recognised the Soviet Union on 1 February 1924 and engaged in negotiations with the Soviets to settle outstanding issues, such as the payment of Russia's pre-revolutionary debts to Britain. However, the Soviets would only agree if they received a loan guaranteed by the British government. The government signed two treaties with the Soviets on 8 August; the first was a commercial treaty which granted most favoured nation status and the second was a general treaty, which left the settlement of pre-revolutionary debts and the government loan to be negotiated at a later date. The Conservatives and Liberals denounced the treaties, especially the government loan, which David Lloyd George called "a fake...a thoroughly grotesque agreement".

On 5 August the police raided the offices of Workers' Weekly, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, for publishing a seditious article by J. R. Campbell, who was arrested under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797. The Labour government dropped the prosecution of the Campbell Case on 13 August, which was criticised by Conservatives and Liberals as political interference. On 8 October the Conservatives voted for the Liberal motion that called for a committee of enquiry on the government's decision, which was carried by 364 votes to 198. Parliament was dissolved the next day and a general election was called. On 25 October, four days before polling day, the Daily Mail published the "Zinoviev letter", which purported to be from Grigory Zinoviev, the Soviet politician and head of the Communist International. The letter, now believed to be a forgery, called for the British Communist Party to support the Russian treaties and encouraged them to commit seditious activities.

Baldwin had renounced protectionism in June 1924 and as a consequence there was no longer any major barrier for those Liberals who wanted to vote Conservative to oust the Labour government. In the election the Liberals lost over 100 seats, mainly to the Conservatives, whilst Labour suffered a net loss of 42 seats. The Conservatives won a large parliamentary majority and Baldwin again became prime minister.

Conservative government: 1924–1929

The government's aim was tranquillity at home and abroad, and to remedy the dislocation caused by the war through a return to the prewar world. The 1925 Locarno Treaties, an attempt at reconciliation between France and Germany, were hailed as the harbinger of a new era of peace and it was hoped that the return to the gold standard (at the prewar parity) in 1925 would lead to the restoration of prewar conditions and prosperity. The government aimed to reduce class conflict and ameliorate social conditions; when in March 1925 a Conservative backbencher introduced a bill to abolish the trade unions' political levy, Baldwin killed the bill with a speech in which he pleaded: "Give peace in our time, O Lord". The government also expanded social services such as unemployment benefit and old age pensions. However, the government failed to avert the 1926 general strike, which lasted for nine days in May. The general strike marked the end a period of industrial strife: after the strike the number of days lost to strikes fell and trade union membership declined.

Baldwin pleaded for "Safety First" during the 1929 general election but the result was a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. Baldwin resigned the premiership on 4 June and the next day Ramsay MacDonald became prime minister of the second Labour government.

Second Labour government: 1929–1931

The government passed the Coal Mines Act 1930, which reduced the miners' working day to 7½ hours and empowered the mine-owners to fix minimum prices and quotas of production. The Housing Act 1930, which finally came into operation in 1934, led to more slum clearances in the five years before 1939 than in the preceding fifty.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression, which led to over two million unemployed by December 1930 and halved the volume of exports between 1929 and 1931. In May 1930 the government rejected Oswald Mosley's memorandum which recommended state direction of industry and the use of credit to expand the economy. In 1931 the government appointed Sir George May as head of a committee on national expenditure. The May Report was published on 31 July and recommended that the government's deficit should be remedied by increased taxation and cuts in public spending. In August there was a run on the pound and the bankers advised that a 10 percent cut in unemployment benefit as part of a balanced budget would restore confidence in sterling. The Cabinet failed to reach agreement on the cuts and MacDonald formed the coalition National government with the Conservatives and some Liberals on 24 August.

The Labour Party opposed the coalition and elected Arthur Henderson as their leader in the place of MacDonald, who was expelled from the party on 31 August. In Labour opinion the fall of the Labour government was explained as a "bankers' ramp" and MacDonald was accused of "betrayal" and viewed as a "traitor". Supporters of the National government accused the Labour government of "running away" from the crisis because they had refused to accept the spending cuts.

National government: 1931–1939

On 28 August the National government received £80 million in credits from the bankers of Paris and New York and on 10 September Philip Snowden, who continued as Chancellor, presented his budget, which eliminated the deficit by spending cuts and increased taxation. However, the run on the pound continued and was made worse when news was received of the naval mutiny in Invergordon on 15 September, which caused alarm. The foreign holders of sterling withdrew their holdings and the pound was forced off the gold standard on 21 September. On 7 October Parliament was dissolved and a general election was called, with polling day on 27 October. MacDonald appealed to the country to give the National government a "doctor's mandate" so that it would have a free hand to remedy the national crisis. The National government won a landslide victory with 67 percent of the vote and the Labour Party was reduced to 52 MPs.

The Conservatives, who made up a majority of National MPs, favoured protectionist tariffs as a solution to the depression. The government combated the dumping of foreign goods imported into Britain with the Abnormal Importations (Customs Duties) Act 1931 and empowered the Minister of Agriculture to impose tariffs on fresh fruits, flowers and vegetables with the Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties) Act 1931. In February 1932 Neville Chamberlain, who replaced Snowden as Chancellor in November 1931, introduced the Import Duties Bill, which legislated for a general tariff of 10 percent on most goods except food and raw materials. The 1932 British Empire Economic Conference led to a limited form of Imperial Preference with the Dominions of the British Empire. This breach with free trade led to the resignation from the government of Snowden and some of the Liberals in September 1932.

The government also passed the Special Areas Act 1934, which gave £2 million in aid to the "distressed" or "special areas", which were the hardest hit by the depression. These were designated as South Wales, Tyneside, Cumberland and Scotland.

In response to the breakdown of the Disarmament Conference and accelerated German rearmament under Adolf Hitler, the National government launched its own rearmament programme in 1934. However, pacifist sentiment was widespread at this time, which found expression in the King and Country debate of February 1933, when the Oxford Union passed the motion "This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country". The October 1933 Fulham East by-election saw the Conservative candidate, who advocated rearmament, defeated by the Labour candidate, who called his opponent a warmonger. The Peace Ballot, completed in June 1935, demonstrated overwhelming support for the League of Nations and disarmament, and less emphatic support for military measures to stop an aggressor state. The Labour and Liberal parties opposed rearmament and instead advocated disarmament combined with collective security through the League of Nations. Winston Churchill, who was left out of the National government, was almost a lone voice in his campaign for increased armaments.

On 4 March 1935 the government published a white paper on defence which announced increased spending on the armed forces. On 7 June Baldwin succeeded MacDonald as prime minister and called a general election in October, with polling day on 14 November. The National government sought a mandate for rearmament to fill the gaps in Britain's defences and Baldwin told the Peace Society on 31 October that there would be "no great armaments". The government won the election with a large though reduced majority and Labour gained around 100 seats.

In late 1936 there was a constitutional crisis when king Edward VIII wanted to marry a divorcée, Wallis Simpson. The king was head of the Church of England but the Church disapproved of divorce and the Cabinet opposed the marriage. Edward was determined to marry Mrs Simpson and agreed to abdicate, which was announced by Baldwin in the House of Commons on 10 December and enacted by an Act of Parliament the next day.

On 28 May 1937 Neville Chamberlain replaced Baldwin as prime minister and embarked on a series of social reforms. The Special Areas (Amendment) Act 1937 introduced concessions on taxes and rents to encourage businesses to set up works in the "special areas", which suffered the highest unemployment. The government nationalised coal mining royalties through the Coal Act 1938, which was an important step towards nationalisation of the coal mines, achieved in 1946. Whereas in the 1920s only 1½ million workers were entitled to an annual paid holiday, this increased to 3 million in 1938 and to 11 million after the enactment of the Holidays with Pay Act 1938. The school leaving age was raised to 15 on 1 September 1939.

However, Chamberlain's premiership was dominated by the challenge of Hitler, which Chamberlain attempted to resolve through appeasement of Germany's grievances combined with continued British rearmament. The policy of appeasement culminated in the 1938 Munich Agreement, which conceded to Germany the German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. On 15 March 1939 the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia, despite Hitler's promise that the Sudetenland was his "last territorial demand in Europe". British opinion was shocked and on 31 March Chamberlain pledged Britain to protect Poland and the British military resumed military conversations with France. The government also introduced peacetime conscription for the first time with the Military Training Act 1939. After Germany entered into a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, the government signed an alliance with Poland on 25 August and passed the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. On 1 September Germany invaded Poland and two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany.

Expanding the welfare state

Two major programmes dealing with unemployment and housing that permanently expanded the welfare state passed in 1919 and 1920 with surprisingly little debate, even as the Conservatives dominated parliament.

The Unemployment Insurance Act 1920 expanded the provisions of the National Insurance Act 1911. It set up the dole system that provided 39 weeks of unemployment benefits to practically the entire civilian working population except domestic servants, farm workers and civil servants. Funded in part by weekly contributions from both employers and employed, it provided weekly payments of 15s for unemployed men and 12s for unemployed women. It passed at a time of very low unemployment. Historian C. L. Mowat called these laws "Socialism by the back door," and notes how surprised politicians were when the costs to the Treasury soared during the high unemployment of 1921. The Baldwin and Chamberlain governments also expanded unemployment assistance: the number of workers included in the scheme increased from 11 million in 1920 to 15.4 million in 1938. For the unemployed who had exceeded their entitlement to assistance, the Unemployment Assistance Board (enacted by the Unemployment Act 1934) required them to undergo the means test to ensure that they were still eligible.

Neville Chamberlain abolished poor law unions and the board of guardians by the Local Government Act 1929, which also transferred poor-law hospitals to local authorities. The number of workers included in the health insurance scheme, which gave them sickness benefit and funded their medical treatment, increased from 15 million in 1921 to 20 million in 1938. According to Paul Addison, Britain's social services were "the most advanced in the world in 1939".

Housing

The rapid expansion of housing was a major success story of the interwar years, standing in sharp contrast to the United States, where new housing construction practically ceased after 1929. The total housing stock In England and Wales was 7.6 million in 1911; 8.0 million in 1921; 9.4 million in 1931; and 11.3 million in 1939. The influential Tudor Walters Report of 1918 set the standards for council house design and location for the next 90 years. It recommended housing in short terraces, spaced at 70 feet (21 m) or a density of 12 to the acre. With the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 Lloyd George set up a system of government housing that followed his 1918 campaign promises of "homes fit for heroes." Also known as the "Addison Act," it required local authorities to survey their housing needs, and start building houses to replace slums. The treasury subsidised the low rents. Older women could then vote. Local politicians consulted with them and in response put more emphasis on such amenities as communal laundries, extra bedrooms, indoor lavatories, running hot water, separate parlours to demonstrate their respectability, and practical vegetable gardens rather than manicured lawns. Progress was not automatic, as shown by the troubles of rural Norfolk. Many dreams were shattered as local authorities had to renege on promises they could not fulfill due to undue haste, impossible national deadlines, debilitating bureaucracy, lack of lumber, rising costs and the non-affordability of rents by the rural poor.

In England and Wales 214,000 multi-unit council buildings were built by 1939; the Ministry of Health became largely a ministry of housing. Council housing accounted for 10 percent of the housing stock in Britain by 1938, peaking at 32 percent in 1980, and dropping to 18 percent by 1996, where it held steady for the next two decades.

During the interwar years England experienced an unprecedented growth of the suburbs, which historians have called the "suburban revolution". By 1939 over 4 million new suburban homes had been built and England went from being the most urbanised country in the world at the end of the First World War into the most suburbanised by the beginning of the Second World War.

Increasingly the British ideal was home ownership, even among the working class. Rates of home ownership rose steadily from 15 percent before 1914, to 32 percent by 1938, and 67 percent by 1996. The construction industry sold the idea of home ownership to upscale renters. The mortgage lost its old stigma of a millstone round your neck to instead be seen as a smart long-term investment in suburbanised Britain. It appealed to aspirations of upward mobility and made possible the fastest rate of growth in working-class owner-occupation during the 20th century. The boom was largely financed by the savings ordinary Britons put into their building societies. Starting in the 1920s favourable tax policies encouraged substantial investment in the societies, creating huge reserves for lending. Beginning in 1927, the societies encouraged borrowing through gradual liberalisation of mortgage terms.

King George V

King George V (reigned 1910–1936) was scandal free. He appeared hard working and became widely admired by the people of Britain and the Empire, as well as "The Establishment". It was George V who established the modern norm of conduct for British royalty, reflecting middle-class values and virtues rather than upper-class lifestyles or vices. Anti-intellectual and lacking the sophistication of his two royal predecessors, as well as their cosmopolitan experiences, he nevertheless understood the British Empire better than most of his ministers; indeed he explained, "it has always been my dream to identify myself with the great idea of Empire." He used his exceptional memory for details and faces to good effect in small talk with commoners and officials. He invariably wielded his influence as a force of neutrality and moderation, seeing his role as mediator rather than final decision maker. For example, in 1921 he had General Jan Smuts draft a speech calling for a compromise truce to end the Irish war of independence and secured cabinet approval; the Irish also agreed and the war ended. Historian A. J. P. Taylor praises the king's initiative as, "perhaps the greatest service performed by a British monarch in modern times." His transparent sense of duty, his loyalty, his impartiality and his unfailing example of good taste inspired the people and discouraged politicians from manipulating him to their own advantage. King George V was by temperament a cautious and conservative man who never fully appreciated or approved the revolutionary changes underway in British society. Nevertheless, everyone understood that he was earnestly devoted to Britain and the British Commonwealth.

The king's popularity was enhanced during the World War when he made more than a thousand visits to hospitals, factories, and military and naval installations. He thereby gave highly visible support to the morale of ordinary workers and servicemen. In 1932, George delivered his Royal Christmas speech on the radio, an event that became a popular across the British Empire every year. His Silver Jubilee in 1935 became a national festival of fervent rejoicing, tinged with a few complaints. His funeral and following commemorations were elaborately staged, very well attended ceremonies that redefined the role of royalty in a newly democratic nation. The people had new ways to affirm their loyalties, such as close attention to live radio broadcasts and follow-up newsreels. New ceremonies born of the commemoration of death in the Great War included the two-minute silence. Britain set up living memorials to honour and expand the king's lifelong belief in the physical, moral and social benefits of recreation and sports. The royal death thereby acted to enhance a shared Britishness. The funeral of King George VI in 1952 followed the same formula. Thereby the monarchy grew stronger and, more importantly, national cohesion was built up in the era of total war.

The king was the most active monarch in many ways since George III (reigned 1760–1820). Biographer H. C. G. Matthew concludes:

His was the busiest service of any nineteenth- or twentieth-century British monarch. He dealt with a remarkable and arduous series of crises: the reaction of the Unionists to the Parliament Bill and the home rule crisis, the complex coalition-forming of the First World War, the incorporation of the Labour Party into the working of constitutional government, the replacement of orthodox politics by a national government. George V's assiduous and non-partisan approach smoothed the process of political change which these crises represented.

Commonwealth and Empire

After taking over the League of Nations mandates on certain German and Ottoman territories in 1919, the British Empire reached its territorial peak. The interwar years saw extensive efforts for economic and educational development of the colonies. The Dominions were prosperous and largely took care of themselves. By far the most troublesome areas for London were India and Palestine.

The Dominions (Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) achieved virtual independence in foreign policy in the Statute of Westminster 1931, though each depended heavily upon British naval protection. After 1931 trade policy favoured Imperial Preference with higher tariffs against the U.S. and all others outside the Commonwealth.

In India, the forces of nationalism were being organised by the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. India contributed significantly to victory in the World War, and was bitterly disappointed by the very limited benefits conferred in the Government of India Act 1919. British fears of German wartime plots or postwar Communism following the Ghadar Mutiny ensured that war-time structures were renewed by the Rowlatt Act of 1919 that suppressed dissent. Tensions escalated particularly in the Punjab region, where repressive measures culminated in the Amritsar Massacre. In Britain public opinion was divided over the morality of the massacre, between those who saw it as having saved India from anarchy, and those who viewed it with revulsion. Gandhi developed the technique of nonviolent resistance, claiming moral superiority over the British use of violence. Multiple negotiations were held in the 1930s, but a strong reactionary movement in Britain, led by Winston Churchill, blocked the adoption of reforms that would satisfy Indian nationalists. Historian Lawrence James states:

From 1930 to 1935 [Churchill] was a Cassandra, warning the country that the government's policy of allowing self-determination for India would be a catastrophe for Britain and mark the beginning of the end for her Empire. His language was stark and his imagery apocalyptic: India was facing a prolonged crisis which successive governments had failed to resolve. The Conservatives in Parliament designed the Government of India Act 1935 to create a federation that would facilitate continued British control and deflect the challenge of Congress. The Labour Party, although in a weak minority in the 1930s, gave support to Congress and worked with Indians in Britain; after 1945 it was in a position to grant India independence.

Egypt was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, although under British rule, until 1914, when London declared it a protectorate. Independence was formally granted in 1922, though it continued to be a British client state until 1954. British troops remained stationed to guard the Suez Canal. Egypt joined the League of Nations. Iraq, a British mandate since 1920, also gained membership of the League in its own right after achieving independence from Britain in 1932. Iraq remained under firm British guidance regarding foreign affairs, defence policy and oil policy.

In Palestine, Britain was presented with the problem of mediating between the Arabs and increasing numbers of Jews. The Balfour Declaration, which had been incorporated into the terms of the mandate, stated that a national home for the Jewish people would be established in Palestine. Tens of thousands of Jews immigrated from Europe. The Arab population revolted in 1936. As the prospect of war with Germany loomed larger, Britain judged the support of Arabs as more important than the establishment of a Jewish homeland, and shifted to a pro-Arab stance, limiting Jewish immigration and in turn triggering a Jewish insurgency.

Dominions control their foreign policies

As Britain's Prime Minister, Lloyd George requested military assistance from the Dominions at the outbreak of the Chanak Crisis in Turkey in 1922. He was rejected. The World War had greatly strengthened the sense of nationalism and self-confidence in the dominions. They were by then independent members of the League of Nations, and refused to automatically follow requests from Britain's leaders. The right of the Dominions to set their own foreign policy, independent of Britain, was recognised at the 1923 Imperial Conference. The 1926 Imperial Conference issued the Balfour Declaration of 1926, declaring the Dominions to be "autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another" within a "British Commonwealth of Nations". This declaration was given legal substance under the 1931 Statute of Westminster. India, however, was denied dominion status and its foreign policy was set by London.

Newfoundland was overwhelmed by the economic disasters of the Great depression and voluntarily gave up its dominion status. It reverted to a crown colony under direct British control until it voted to join Canada in 1948. The Irish Free State broke its ties with London with a new constitution in 1937, making it a republic in all but name.

Foreign policy

Britain had suffered little physical devastation during the war but the cost in death and disability and money were very high. In the Khaki Election of 1918, coming a month after the Allied victory over Germany, Lloyd George promised to impose a harsh treaty on Germany. At the Paris Peace Conference in early 1919, however, he took a much more moderate approach. France and Italy demanded and achieved harsh terms, including German admission of guilt for starting the war (which humiliated Germany), and a demand that Germany pay the entire Allied cost of the war, including veterans' benefits and interest. Britain reluctantly supported the Treaty of Versailles, although many experts, most famously John Maynard Keynes, thought it was too harsh on Germany.

Britain began to look on a restored Germany as an important trading partner and worried about the effect of reparations on the British economy. In the end the United States financed German debt payments to Britain, France and the other Allies through the Dawes Plan, and Britain used this income to repay the loans it borrowed from the U.S. during the war.

Vivid memories of the horrors and deaths of the World War made Britain and its leaders strongly inclined to pacifism in the interwar era.

1920s

Britain maintained close relationships with France and the United States, rejected isolationism, and sought world peace through naval arms limitation treaties, and peace with Germany through the Locarno treaties of 1925. A main goal was to restore Germany to a peaceful, prosperous state.

With disarmament high on the agenda, Britain played a major role following the United States in the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 in working toward naval disarmament of the major powers. By 1933 disarmament had collapsed and the issue became rearming for a war against Germany.

At the Washington Conference Britain abandoned the Two power standard - her long-time policy of paramount naval strength equal to or greater than the next two naval powers combined. Instead it accepted equality with United States, and weakness in Asian waters relative to Japan. It promised to not strengthen the fortifications of Hong Kong, which were within range of Japan. The treaty with Japan was not renewed, But Japan at the time was not engaged in expansion activities of the sort that grew momentous from 1931 onward. London cut loose from Tokyo but moved much closer to Washington.

Politically the coalition government of Prime Minister David Lloyd George depended primarily on Conservative Party support. He increasingly antagonised his supporters with foreign policy miscues. The Chanak Crisis of 1922 brought Britain to the brink of war with Turkey, but the Dominions were opposed and the British military was hesitant, so peace was preserved. This was one of the factors causing Conservative MPs to vote, at the Carlton Club meeting, to fight the next election as a separate party; Lloyd George then resigned as Prime Minister, ending the coalition government.

The success at Locarno in handling the German question impelled Foreign Secretary Austen Chamberlain, working with France and Italy, to find a master solution to the diplomatic problems of Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It proved impossible to overcome mutual antagonisms, because Chamberlain's programme was flawed by his misperceptions and fallacious judgments.

1930s

The great challenge came from dictators, first Benito Mussolini of Italy from 1923, then from 1933 Adolf Hitler of a much more powerful Nazi Germany. Britain and France led the policy of non-interference in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The League of Nations proved disappointing to its supporters; it was unable to resolve any of the threats posed by the dictators. British policy was to "appease" them in the hopes they would be satiated. League-authorised sanctions against Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia had support in Britain but proved a failure and were dropped in 1936.

Germany was the difficult case. By 1930 British leaders and intellectuals largely agreed that all major powers shared the blame for war in 1914, and not Germany alone as the Treaty of Versailles specified. Therefore, they believed the punitive harshness of the Treaty of Versailles was unwarranted, and this view, adopted by politicians and the public, was largely responsible for supporting appeasement policies down to 1938. That is, German rejections of treaty provisions seemed justified.

Coming of the Second World War

By late 1938 it was clear that war was looming, and that Germany had the world's most powerful military. British military leaders warned that Germany would win a war, and Britain needed another year or two to catch up in terms of aviation and air defence. Appeasement of Germany—giving in to its demands—was the government's policy until early 1939. The final act of appeasement came when Britain and France sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Hitler's demands at the Munich Agreement of 1938. Instead of satiation Hitler then seized the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and menaced Poland. In response Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain rejected further appeasement and stood firm in promising to defend Poland. Hitler unexpectedly cut a deal with Joseph Stalin to divide Eastern Europe; when Germany did invade Poland in September 1939, Britain and France declared war; the British Commonwealth followed London's lead.