The Eclipse of Great Britain Also by Anne Orde Great Britain and International Security, 1920-1926 British Policy and European Reconstruction after the First World War The Eclipse of Great Britain The United States and British Imperial Decline, 1895-1956 Anne Orde Formerly Senior Lecturer in History, University of Durham © Anne Orde 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1996 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-66284-7 ISBN 978-1-349-24924-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24924-4 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 321 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 Published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-16140-8 hardcover ISBN 978-0-312-16141-5 paperback Contents Preface VII Introduction 1 1 Britain and the Assertion of American Hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, 1895-1914 9 2 Resources and Responsibility: The First World War and the Peace Settlement 41 3 Finding a New Balance: Naval and Other Problems in the 1920s 70 4 Appeasement, Isolationism and the Approach of War in the 1930s 99 5 The Second World War and American Predominance 129 6 British Imperial Decline and American Super-Power, 1945-56 160 List of Abbreviations 193 Notes 194 Bibliography 230 Index 253 v Preface This book is a study, not of Anglo-American relations as such, but of the relationship between Great Britain's imperial de cline and the ascent of the United States to the position of a super-power, and the ways in which people in both countries - politicians, officials, publicists, and as far as possible public opinion - perceived the process of the replacement of the one power by the other while it was happening. For these perceptions, I have made extensive use of contem porary books and journalism. In writing a book of this nature, covering a long period and a wide range of affairs, an author incurs debts to many other historians, whose research it would be futile to try to duplicate. The extent of my obligations will be apparent from the references: these authors, however, are in no way responsible for inferences that I have drawn from their work. For facilitating my own research I am grateful to the staff of the Public Record Office, Kew, to a number of li brarians, and to custodians of all the other archives listed in the bibliography. Staff at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Yale University Library were especially hospitable. The British Academy gave me a grant to visit the United States. Friends and former colleagues at the University of Durham helped by asking as well as answering questions and discussing problems. Dr Brian Ward elucidated a piece of musical history. Crown Copyright material is quoted by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office. For other permissions I am indebted to the Bodleian Library and Dr Alexander Murray (Gilbert Murray Papers); the British Library, Lord Hankey and Professor A.K.S. Lambton (Balfour Papers, Cecil of Chelwood Papers, Curzon Papers); Curtis Brown Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Sir Winston S. Churchill and C & T Publications Ltd (Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, copyright the Estate of Vll viii Preface Sir Winston S. Churchill); The Economist; HarperCollins Pub lishers Inc. and Random Century, London (Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War, copy right 1948 by Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, copy right renewed 1976 by McGeorge Bundy); Harvard University Press (The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison et al., copyright 1979 by Elting E. Morison); The Keeper of the Records of Scotland (Lothian Muniments); Princeton Univer sity Press (Churchill and Roosevelt. The Complete Correspondence, ed. Warren F. Kimball; The Papers of Woodrow Wilmn, ed. Arthur Link and others); The Royal Economic Society and Macmillan, London and Basingstoke (J.M. Keynes, Collected Writings); Bu reau of Public Affairs, Department of State (Foreign Relations of the United States); Yale University (Walter Lippmann Papers, Henry L. Stimson Papers). Every effort has been made to trace all copyright-holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrange ments at the first opportunity. ANNE ORDE Introduction Power may be defined as the capacity to use resources for the attainment of desired ends. It always involves relations with others, as objects, rivals or allies. It is never static, and always relative. Resources can be quantified; ends and ability to achieve them involve factors such as policy and will, which can not. The decline of Great Britain from the position of a world power during the first half of the twentieth century, and the ascent of the United States to the position of a super-power are linked in time and geographically. The relationship be tween the two processes is not one of simple cause and effect; but neither were they wholly independent. They have to be seen, moreover, in the general context of the distribution of international power. Within this context the two countries have been both rivals and allies; and, throughout, their relations have had a peculiar flavour derived from cultural connections and historical experience, real and imagined.! All these factors and the relationship between them form part of our discussion. In terms of economic resources, Britain's relative decline can be noted from the very beginning of the century. In 1880 the United Kingdom produced 22.9 per cent of world manufactur ing output, in 1900 18.5 per cent; it has been overtaken by the United States which had grown from 14.7 per cent in 1880 to 23.6 per cent, and was being approached by Germany which had grown from 8.5 per cent to 13.2 per cent (and which over took Britain in 1913).2 This was mainly the catching up oflater comers, who also had advantages of size. In particular once the great area of the United States, its wealth of physical re sources and rapidly growing population, began to be fully de veloped, Britain's early lead was bound to be reduced and then eliminated. The trend continued. It was not continuous: wars and depression altered circumstances and performance; other 1 2 The Eclipse of Great Britain countries industrialized. And the decline was relative, not ab solute: the British economy grew throughout; in 1958 British industry produced two and a half times as much as in 1913; in per capita output Britain was still in 1953 second only to the United States. Nevertheless relative economic decline meant relatively reduced capacity to maintain a world position. At the beginning of the century Britain's interests were spread all round the world, informally by trade and investment, for mally in territorial empire. The formal Empire reached its greatest extent at the end of the First World War, covering nearly a quarter of the world's land surface and about the same proportion of its population. It was a cause of pride, of com placency, and of anxiety. In 1907 the recently retired Perma nent Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, Lord Sanderson, likened it to 'some huge giant sprawling all over the globe, with gouty fingers and toes stretching in every di rection, which cannot be approached without eliciting a scream,.3 The value of the Empire to Britain is a matter of continuing debate, too complicated to be summarized here.4 It is, however, worth making three points. In the first place, Britain did not closely govern or control the economies of most of the Empire. The Dominions were virtually independent in domestic affairs by 1914 and increas ingly so in external affairs by 1939. India had fiscal autonomy from 1919 and British rule was exercised by an astonishingly small number of Europeans. The colonies, of varying sizes and resources, were governed partly directly, partly indirectly through local elites. In the Middle East, Egypt was at first a protector ate, then a treaty partner; Iraq (until 1930) and Palestine were held between the wars under mandate from the League of Nations. The Empire and Commonwealth were important to British trade and investment, but that is not to say that trade and investment depended on political control. Secondly, the military balance sheet shows both assets and liabilities. Before 1914 and in the 1920s the Empire and Com monwealth could be defended for fairly modest cost; while Britain was secure in Europe, rivals were not too numerous or strong, and local opposition to British rule was weak. India was a very important source of military manpower for Britain's world-wide commitments in peace and for war. Ties of personal and fam-