Decolonisation Pressures (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes

Decolonisation Pressures

Introduction

By 1960, Macmillan, Macleod and most Cabinet members recognised that rapid withdrawal from Empire would prove less damaging than prolonged campaigns to retain colonial control. Multiple forces converged to create this political consensus, transforming Britain's approach to its African territories between 1959 and 1963.

African nationalism

The growth of nationalist movements across Africa formed a powerful pressure for decolonisation. This nationalism drew strength from various sources and gained momentum throughout the late 1950s.

Impact of the Second World War

The war fundamentally altered African political consciousness and created conditions favourable to nationalist organisation. Several developments proved particularly important.

The Atlantic Charter inspired educated Africans by articulating principles of self-determination, even though Churchill had not intended these to apply to colonial peoples. This document gave nationalist leaders a framework through which to challenge imperial rule.

Economic transformation accompanied military mobilisation. New factories emerged to replace imports and process raw materials - producing items such as beer and cigarettes. Urban centres expanded rapidly as wage labourers migrated to towns, creating concentrations of workers susceptible to radical political ideas. Africans responded angrily to increased British economic control during wartime, feeling exploited rather than supported.

The influence of Ghana

Ghana's achievement of independence in March 1957 demonstrated that African self-rule was achievable. The former Gold Coast became the first sub-Saharan African colony to gain independence, with Nkrumah as president. This created a powerful precedent: if Ghanaians could govern themselves effectively, other African peoples could reasonably demand the same right.

Nkrumah actively promoted independence movements elsewhere in Africa, encouraging nationalist organisations and providing moral support. Across the continent, nationalist movements gained increasing popular support, directly challenging imperial authority and making colonial administration progressively more difficult.

The "wind of change"

Macmillan's six-week African tour in 1960 convinced him of African nationalism's strength and durability. Speaking to the South African Parliament in Cape Town in February 1960, he acknowledged the reality of 'African national consciousness'. His famous phrase - that a 'wind of change' was 'blowing through this continent' - recognised that 'this growth of national consciousness is a political fact'. He insisted Britain's 'national policies must take account of it', effectively accepting that resisting this force would prove futile.

French and Belgian decolonisation

Britain was not alone in facing nationalist pressure. France's prolonged struggle to retain Algeria culminated in the collapse of the Fourth Republic. Charles de Gaulle, the new French president, granted Algeria full independence and withdrew from most other French African territories. In 1960, Belgium followed this pattern by withdrawing from the Congo.

These decisions created additional pressure on Britain. As one colony achieved independence, others intensified their demands, making it increasingly difficult to justify different treatment for British territories. By 1960, sixteen new African states had entered the United Nations, fundamentally altering the organisation's membership balance. These newly independent states actively lobbied for independence for remaining colonial territories.

The Congo's descent into anarchy in mid-1960 heightened concerns that instability might spread into adjacent British territories.

Limitations of African nationalism

Whilst nationalist pressure was real, historians have questioned whether its strength alone made British colonial rule inevitable collapse. The nationalist movements' power has sometimes been exaggerated.

Britain could potentially exploit these divisions, playing different groups against each other as it had done successfully in the past. Britain retained the capacity to secure support from conservative vested interests within colonies if social upheaval threatened their position. These groups might prefer continued British rule to uncertain independence under nationalist leaders.

Britain possessed sufficient military power to suppress nationalist movements if it chose to deploy it. Portugal, a considerably weaker power, maintained its African colonies far longer than Britain. Southern Rhodesia's white minority regime survived until 1964, demonstrating that determined resistance could delay decolonisation significantly.

Lack of British will

Britain's crucial weakness was not military incapacity but political unwillingness to maintain colonial authority through force. Several factors explain this absence of will.

Strategic and economic calculations

By 1960, Macmillan understood that any action beyond rapid power transfer risked provoking armed resistance. Brutal suppression of colonial populations would severely damage Britain's international standing and credibility, inviting widespread condemnation from both allies and adversaries.

Charges of imperialism and racism had become powerful weapons in the Cold War (the rivalry between the USA and its allies and the USSR and its allies after the Second World War). Macmillan sought to avoid alienating Third World (developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America not aligned with either the USA or the USSR) opinion, recognising these states' growing importance in international affairs.

More fundamentally, Macmillan and fellow policy-makers identified no compelling strategic or economic justification for expending vast sums and risking thousands of lives to govern people who actively rejected British rule. Recent bitter experiences in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus may have weakened the government's determination to cling to Empire.

British public opinion

Macmillan recognised that Britons, increasingly indifferent to Empire, would not support new military commitments, particularly if these required reintroducing National Service. By the early 1960s, few Britons considered the Empire worth fighting for.

Media coverage, predominantly liberal in orientation, criticised coercive colonial methods. Many Britons rejected arguments for maintaining minority rule based on assertions of white racial supremacy. More importantly, by the 1960s, the public was far more concerned with domestic issues - employment, education, health, housing - than with colonial affairs. Most on the political left regarded the Empire's dissolution positively. Most on the right, whilst perhaps regretting its end, considered it unavoidable.

Political calculations

Whilst some Conservative Party members opposed rapid decolonisation, Macmillan faced less resistance than might have been anticipated. Most Conservatives acknowledged Britain's changing interests and accepted decolonisation as necessary. Right-wing Conservatives, like Lord Salisbury who opposed Macmillan's policies, found themselves isolated. They could not mobilise effective opposition because the prime minister could rely on Labour support for decolonisation policies. They could not rouse the British electorate to their cause either.

Macmillan's vision

South Africa

South African white voters responded by making their country a republic in 1960. This status change required reapplication for Commonwealth membership. Macmillan supported continued membership, but African and Asian Commonwealth states threatened withdrawal if South Africa remained. South Africa prevented a Commonwealth crisis by withdrawing its application, effectively accepting expulsion rather than reforming its racial policies.

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