As 1899 dawned, the Era of Imperialism was at its height, yet Britain had already begun the process of winding down its Empire. It began with the granting of Responsible Government to many of its colonies. The majority of these colonies were settler-colonies such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Canada had Confederated in 1897, and the Colonial Office was pleased with the result. Indeed, they wanted to expand the dominion model in other colonies. In Australia, there was a lack of local support, which would push the Federation of Australia until 1901. In South Africa, where the Colonial Office was eager to achieve federation, it was met with robust protests. The Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, Sir John Molteno, advised the Colonial Office against it, but when he retired, Cecil Rhodes took over. Rhodes was more than eager to assist the forcible federation of southern Africa under British control and by 1899, only two obstacles lay in the way: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, commonly known as the South African Republic.

Brinksmanship and ‘Impatient Imperialism’ led to the Boer war, which would see the arrival of Colonial Forces from many of the Dominions around the world to assist in defeating the Boer Republics. The same model would be multiplied in size to field thousands of men and women on every front the British fought in World War One.

Post-War, the Imperial Federation League grew weaker, and the governments of the seven self-governing dominions and the UK came together in 1926 for an Imperial Conference. It was here it was decided to create the Commonwealth of free nation linked together under the Crown. From the official release – known as the Balfour Declaration of 1926 – the word and concept of the Commonwealth was first officially used.

The decisions made in the Imperial Conference would come together in the form of the Statute of Westminster of 1931. This declared that the Dominions in the Commonwealth were free nation-states within the Commonwealth, which was now an association of equals. At this time, only Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Newfoundland and the Union of South Africa were Dominions, so the Commonwealth existed in only for the settler-colonies.

The Second Boer War

The Responsible Government of the Cape Colony had elected Cecil Rhodes as Prime Minister, in what may be considered to be a contradiction in terms. Mr Rhodes, mining magnate and arch-imperialist, proceeded to develop the art of brinksmanship to the ultimate end. He pushed through legislation to seize land held by the indigenous tribes and to sabotage the process of Cape Qualified Franchise, which some have decried as the beginning the long painful era of apartheid in South Africa.

Rhodes was not merely an imperialist and he chafed with frustration when the Tswana kings of Bechuanaland outmanoeuvred him by going to London and placing what would become Botswana (then the Bechuanaland Protectorate) under British control as a protectorate, avoiding the brutal and clearly profit-centered policies of Rhodes’ British South Africa Company.

As part of Rhodes’ personal expansion, the Boer Republics’ control over the Witwatersrand goldmines had to be broken and he engineered the disastrous Jameson Raid, which was when a number of British volunteers attempted to create a rebellion in the Transvaal. The trouble-makers (or to use the old and descriptive American name: Filibusters) were arrested by the Boer authorities and trouble immediately developed.

This brought down Rhodes’ government and nearly the British administration in London, which was beginning to get frustrated with the free imperialist and expansive policies of the South Africans. However, the German Kaiser sent a telegram to the government of the Transvaal congratulating them. This, when coupled with the Germans building a Risksflotte, a navy capable of threatening the Royal Navy’s control over imperial lines of communication, turned public support against the Boers and the Germans. This was used by the jingo elements within the Cape Colony to continue to plot the downfall of the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

Peace talks were set up in an attempt to reduce the tension between the British Empire and the Boer States. During these talks Colonial Secretary Chamberlain demanded that the ‘Uitlanders'(British and other persons living in the Boer States who were second-class citizens) receive full voting and citizenship rights. In return, the President of the Transvaal demanded all British forces retreat from the borders with the Boer Republics. At that point, the British forces were mainly garrison units along the border and the Boers were deploying their mobile fighting units – the effective Commandos – to the borders with the British colonies. When coupled with misunderstandings on both sides relations completely broke down and the imperialist plotters such as Rhodes and others, who had long desired to get their hands on the rich Witwatersrand gold fields had achieved their wish: war.

The Boers struck first and effectively, laying siege to numerous cities. In what would mark the continuation of the British Army’s “policy” in South Africa, the Generals, chiefly General Buller, operated on their own, blundering off overconfidently against the Boers and all orders. This involved frontal assault against entrenched Boers armed with magazine rifles and protected by barbed wire. Similar to the great disasters for the British Army in 1914-1916 culminating in the First Day of the Somme (1916), the British Army met defeat after defeat against their mobile and effective opponents at Colenso, Magersfontein, Stormberg as well as others. The British Army was not prepared or trained for mobile combat in open bushveldt and the results were telling. A solution would have to be found if the Second Boer War would not end as the First one did. This was provided from the Commonwealth.

As common feeling was against the British in most of Europe and America, the offer by the Australian and Canadian governments to provide forces was eagerly received by the Colonial Office, even though the War Office protested. Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, an eager liberal and typically against wars of annexation, felt that the end of the First Boer War had resulted in a victory for slavery (The Boers had still not banned slavery) and that such a state of affairs could not be tolerated.

The Australians, who had grown up on the bush, were admirably suited for combat in South Africa. The 16,000 Australian militia volunteers, mainly mounted infantry, served remarkably effectively in the South African Campaign, proving to be more than a match for the mobile Boer Commandos. The Canadians sent over 7,000 volunteers to South Africa, the largest foreign deployment of the Canadian Army until the First World War, and was a large force considering the population of Canada at the time was around 8 million. The New Zealanders also served, providing 6,000 volunteers, of whom around 70 were killed in action, and nearly twice that number died of disease – the primary cause of death in the entire war for all sides.

As the British improved their ability and effectiveness in the field, supported by large numbers of Colonial volunteers, they were able to hold territory and defeat the Boers. However, numerous commandos were still at large, conducting a guerrilla war. In what must be viewed as one of the lowest ebbs in the British colonial history, the Army decided to collect and “centralise”, or “concentrate” ‘enemy civilians’. Although not the first Concentration Camps, they followed the deplorable international norm: the genocide of those interred was not a primary, or even a secondary or tertiary goal – but the camp administrators simply didn’t care. When coupled with the diseases running through the unprepared British Army, enemy civilians were low down on the list of receiving care, food and medical attention.

The results were terrifyingly grim, and when coupled with the Scorched Earth policy resulted in horrendous civilian casualties and a quarter of those who were placed in the camps – nearly 28,000 – died.

The results understandably and quite rightly shocked the British public, and when in 1902 the Boers finally came to the negotiating table, the Peace of Vereerniging. The resulting Peace Treaty was very lenient towards the Boers, and those who accepted British rule were granted full citizenship as British subjects. Included in the treaty was the aim of some South Africans – A Federal State. Nevertheless, South Africa still bears the scars of the Boer War, and many other ruthless combats fought in South Africa. It is to be hoped that peace and reconciliation will continue to grow in South Africa.

If anything positive came out of the Boer War (for as Molteno had warned, the Boers’ racism could not mix with the liberal Cape Colony values), it was giving the Dominions military experience. The untrained colonial militia had become mounted marksmen, and skilled tacticians, able to think outside of the box. This would lead to numerous improvements, mainly in colonial, but also in British forces in the next war. It would be a war far less controversial than the Boer War, and was manned by some of the largest mass volunteer actions the world had ever seen.

The Boer War also saw the last time that Dominion Forces were viewed as inferior colonial tagalongs. The First World War would end that, and it would be on the battlefield that nationhood became firmly established, and the paradoxical sense of ‘in’ yet ‘inter’ dependence would continue.

Towards The Great War

The peace that followed the end of the Boer War would not last. By far the most active aspect of this was Irish Home Rule. This was a major issue and attempts to push it through the Houses of Parliament nearly led to wars and insurrections in Ireland. In the end, the First World War averted a civil war, and the status of Ireland was deferred. It would be given Dominion Status, yet would leave the Commonwealth soon after and become their own republic.

Further afield, the Colonial Office achieved its aim in Australia in 1901 when the states Federated. This created the Federation of Australia. Again triggered by perceived foreign threats, it saw two major issues tip the balance. The first was the understandable feeling that the French and German colonies in the area presented a threat from which further military build up could be created. The second was the deplorable decision to create the ‘White Australia Policy’. This was an attempt to keep the population of Australia not merely white, but solely from the British Isles, and from 1901 until the 1975, Australia had some form of restriction of immigration according to ethnicity and race. Determined to keep their liberal values, the New Zealanders refused to join the Australian Federation, and continued with their own status. A status that since 1907 had been “Dominion” – the ultimate type of self-government within the Empire.

By 1911, the way Europe was going had ben settled. Germany had turned down British offers of a agreement between each other, and Anglo-French relations rapidly improved. The Entent Cordiale was signed, and for the first time in many years, the Quebecois could know that if they did go to war – as they would do later – they would do so side by side with, and not against France. Canada at that time was still developing; In full control over the prairies and all of British North America, the decisively Imperial election of 1911 was preceded by the arrival of anti-Chinese sentiment in Canada.

British Columbia, on the Pacific Coast, was naturally closer to the East than the West. This meant that when there was a need for immigrants, those from the East were easier to get, and in most cases worked very hard for lower wages. Undercut by the efficiency of the ‘Orientals’, and fearful of mass immigration, Vancouver was swept up in a frenzy of anti-oriental riots in September 1907. Fortunately, nobody was killed, but the Canadian government capitulated, enacting a whole new set of immigration restrictions that mirrored the Australians’. The Canadians continued their liberalism in one respect however; all Europeans were actively sought out to emigrate to the prairie.

The Canadian support for the Boer War and connection with Britain was understandably markedly absent among the Quebecois, and the schism continued to dog Canadian politics. The ultimate error developed with the ‘Naval Service Bill’ of 1910. This was aimed to create an official Canadian Navy. Opposed with equal vigour by the Imperialists and Quebecois as too pro and anti British at the same time, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the uniter of Canada and first Quebecois Prime Minister, fell. His career of seeking compromises had run a magnificent course, but finally failed. It would lead to a new election, the Federal Election of 1911.

In a last attempt to take the pressure of the divisions in Canada, Laurier proposed lower tariffs on American goods. This completely backfired, and the Tories under Robert Borden swept into power on the back of an anti-American wave, fearful of an American annexation, as the proposals were viewed in the US House of Representatives. The Canadian Navy was left to its own small devices, and Canadian Dollars began to flow to the Royal Navy’s Budget – a solution preferred by the Quebec Nationalists and Canadian Imperialists alike. Like the Canadian Army, the Navy was a small, underfunded ineffective force; the sign of a new nation trying to assert its nationhood.

If any man in this time period, between the Boer and First World Wars, can be heralded as a developer of the Commonwealth, it would most likely be the German Kaiser or Arthur Balfour. Kaiser Wilhelm II was a sabre-rattler, and while Bismark’s policies had been to avoid war through strength, the Kaiser did not achieve this; he created fear and arms races. His diplomacy was the most undiplomatic in that prim and proper era, and his admiral Tirpitz’s idea of a Risksflotte – the navy to challenge the Royal Navy would go far to create a war. The actions of the Kaiser would push the Dominions together, as they saw the threat from Germany, the German Colonies and the Germany Navy was serious to them all.

To Arthur Balfour, the Commonwealth was not merely an idea he worked for, it was the future, and his plans continue to shape and form the basis of the Commonwealth to this day. Prime Minister of the UK when he was younger, most of his work for which he is famous was performed when he was older and serving as Foreign Secretary, which he did for a remarkable period of time. His guidance led him to become the elder statesman of British and Commonwealth politics, and is well known globally for his declaration that it was the government’s policy to create a Jewish State in the Middle East in 1917.

Yet while the Kaiser spurned Bismarck and his ideas, they were picked up in ‘The Antipodes’. New Zealand, long the ‘Radical Vanguard of the Dominions’, was consistently pushing for social programs and Imperial Federation. These were view as if they went hand-in-hand: Germany had presented such a marvellous example of a group of nations with similar cultures and the same language becoming a unified world power. Bismarck’s statesmanship had steered it clear of ideological divisions, and although he was an arch-conservative and anti-democrat, his policies of state socialism were of interest. Proponents of this idea proposed a Joseph Chamberlain-style Conservatism, which is often known as “Caring Conservatism” or in German, Staatsozialismus.

However, as Mr. Edward Harris of the United Commonwealth Society warns, this was a period of “all Chiefs and no Indians”, pointing out the lack of support from the ordinary folk whose feelings and persuasions on the issues are not known or recorded. New Zealand during this time was a nation we might recognise today: universal franchise for women had been achieved in 1893 – the first in any nation, Pensions were instituted and if land was to be taken from the Maori, it was to be bought. Prior to 1909, this could only be done to the Government (as per the Treaty of Waitangi), but now the free market took over.

South Africa was granted Dominion status in 1910, a mere eight years after the end of the war. This naturally included self-governing and a many of the Boer generals and politicians became leaders of the new South Africa.

The Great War

The First World, or Great War, saw the Commonwealth unify in a remarkable way. It would also seal the nationhood of the soon to be Dominions, as they asserted their nationality, strength and martial ability, achieving victories deemed impossible by the organised, professional European armies. It would not, as the Boer War had been, a war of conquest, manned only by the Settler-Colonies. It would be a war of defence, and the number of volunteers would prove this. The Rt. Hon. David Cameron, the retired (British) Prime Minister declared in relation to Commonwealth servicemen in this war: ‘They fought together, they fell together, and together they defended the freedoms we enjoy today.’ Like the War of 1812, such sacrifice demanded respect and better status, and it was partly due to the ultimate sacrifice of 74,000 Indians, India achieved a limited for of Responsible Government.

The story of how the war began has been told many times before, and it is a hard and painful one to retell. The ability of Europe to descend into war only 38 days after an assassination is a grave warning to all governments to the present day.

The Dominions fell into line behind the British government, which in turn did so behind the people of Belgium. International Law, treaties and the rights of nations to be self-governing were not to be disregarded, public opinion held most strongly. The lack of public memory of those who served and died, and that the British public are so unaware of the great sacrifices by the people of the Commonwealth through both World Wars is saddening. As Daniel Hannan, MEP pointed out: With their homes and loved ones not in danger, they left their lives to go and fight for a nation most had never seen, because of a cause they believed in. If such sacrifices were to be truly honoured, as we do every 11 November at the Cenotaph at Whitehall, there should be no room for divisiveness, racism or playing our mutual heritage as a political football.

The British-Indian Army mustered more than a mind-boggling 1,500,000 volunteers from what we now know as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Just less than a tenth of those fought on the Western Front, and 140,000 fought on the Ottoman Fronts. They were given 13,000 awards for bravery, and took 74,000 casualties (dead and wounded).

Australia, whose forces were used as professional shock-troops, fielded more than 420,000 men, and suffered 60,000 dead and another 137,000 wounded, which gave them one of the highest casualty rates of all the Commonwealth forces. Yet the battles they fought, and the victories they won, tell the story: Gallipoli, Gaza, Beersheba, Jerusalem, and Megiddo in the Levant Front; Somme, Messines, Ypres, and the great battles of 1918 culminating in the complete breaking of the German Army at Amiens on the Western. They were key to the ultimate victory of the allies.

New Zealand, a fellow member of the ANZAC force (Australia-New Zealand Army Corps) fought at most of the battles alongside the Australians. New Zealand trained, equipped and fielded 100,000 soldiers and medical support staff – nearly a tenth of their population. From this, they bore 18,000 killed and “more than 40,000 wounded” – again a casualty rate of nearly 60%.

Canada, the other main nation well known for her shock troops, fielded 620,000 soliders, of whom 67,000 died and 173,000 were wounded. Canada, was there at the pivotal Battle of Amiens, although their most famous victory, similar to Gallipoli for the Australians and New Zealanders, was at Vimy Ridge. Here a strong German position, which had resisted numerous attacks by both British and French forces, was taken by the Canadian Army. Still today, it is one of the proudest engagements of the Canadian Army, and is declared as the ‘Birth of Canada’.

The Canadian home front was less bloody and considerably less glorious. Its Navy was so weak it could not properly defend the vital convoy routes to Europe, and in the early stages of the war, the Imperial Japanese Navy was responsible for protecting Pacific Canadian shipping from the Germans. The service of the IJN protected Vancouver from a bombardment by the powerful German Pacific Fleet.

Of greater importance was the Conscription Crisis. Determined to continue to man the war, the Canadian Conservative Government tried to pass a conscription bill. This greatly deepened the divides between the Anglo and Francophone Canadians and in the end, following considerable rioting in Quebec, a compromise was archived. This included granting certain Canadian women the right to vote, and a snap election. This was won by Sir Robert Borden’s conservatives, and conscription was pushed through, admittedly with a large number of loopholes.

The British African colonies’ story during WWI has not been told, and is generally unknown. It varies from the bravery of the South Africans, irrespective of race, in defending their homeland from German invasions and small Boer rebellions, to the 55,000 Africans who served in uniform. These men earned 166 decorations and suffered about 10,000 casualties. This statistic does not include the vital roles performed by countless Africans in supplying raw materials to the British Commonwealth forces on all fronts, without which the entire war would have ground to a halt.

The West Indies raised a remarkable 15,000 soldiers, of whom 2,500 were killed or wounded. Again, as the Africans, the agricultural production of the Caribbean supplied vital food and cotton to the forces.

The sacrifices and bravery of all these men and women, the vast majority of whom were in no personal danger was truly remarkable, and it is right we honour their service. This feeling of indebtedness would also drive the creation of the Balfour Declaration and an official acceptance of the new political reality.

The organisation of the war had also improved. The British Prime Minister, Sir David Lloyd George organising an “Imperial War Cabinet” with delegates from the UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and India meeting together from 1917 to 1918 to co-ordinate the war effort. These meeting saw the first official use to the term the “Commonwealth”, as well as Resolution IX, which defined the Dominions as “autonomous nations of an Imperial Commonwealth” with a “right … to an adequate voice in foreign policy and in foreign relations.” What was more noteworthy was that India was included in the second quote.

Lloyd George went further, and had the war continued into 1919 reportedly stated he would have fired the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Commander in Chief and replaced them with General Monash and General Currie respectively. These two extremely effective and reliable generals from Australia and Canada commanded the respect of all who knew them, and led their men to victories with fewer casualties. A mere 10 years earlier, it would have been impossible, but David Lloyd George was a forward thinker, and laid the foundations to both of the famous Balfour Declarations.

Post-War World and Run-Up to the Balfour Declaration

The First World War was unusual, in that it was declared by Great Britain, but the Dominions all signed the Treaty of Versailles, ending the war. Indeed, the level of equality had reached the level where in 1922 an Anglo-Turkish crisis did not become a war because the Dominions refused to back such a scheme. No longer were the Commonwealth Dominions at the beck and call of London, but had a veto power. In such a respect, the Chanak Crisis not merely brought down David Lloyd George, and began the process of sending Churchill into ‘the wilderness’ saw the first effective use of the Commonwealth as a unified foreign policy bloc.

The Conference of 1926 & the Balfour Declaration

The way the British government had been undermined by the Canadians over the Chanak Crisis was new. Being in uncharted territories, Lord Balfour wrote a theory on how the Commonwealth should work in future, and the relationship between Britain and the Dominions. The centralised power of Britain had clearly begun to ebb away, and something needed to be done to define the new situation.

In an interesting footnote, Arthur Balfour had been Prime Minister in 1905 and had established the Committee of Imperial Defence, which was effectively a defence think-tank with heads of government in it. It, like so many other grandiose Commonwealth schemes failed, but it remained a non-government Think-Tank until its abolition at the beginning of the Second World War.

The Imperial Conference of 1923 did not achieve much, but led the way for the Conference of 1926 to be so spectacularly successful. The latter Imperial Conference began with the Irish Free State and South Africa maintaining their nationhood and wishing for this to be accepted by the British Government, a move which Canada supported. Australia and New Zealand were happy with the status quo but were not closed to change. Canada had just survived a Constitutional Crisis over the ability of the Governor-General to refuse to call elections, in what became known as the King-Byng Affair. Unsure about the role, authority and power of the Governor General, the Canadians wished to have the legal query solved, and came to the Conference to achieve this goal. The South Africans were divided with Field Marshall Jan Smuts being more pro-British and proposed a constitution; his opponent, Barry Hertzog, the arch-Boer Nationalist, wanted it to declare the “end of empire”. In the end, neither South Africans achieved their goals.

The driving force from the British side was the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs Leo Amery. A British-Hungarian-Jew born in India, with previous military experience, he was a good friend of Churchill in many respects, and an ardent anti-appeaser of Hitler. He differed from Churchill in his viewpoint that Britain alone could no longer be a great power. It would have to share its power with the Commonwealth including his beloved India, or risk losing much of its power. The loss of power would be to the US, which would benefit most from a breakup of the Commonwealth – as his archenemy, Adolf Hitler, would also point out 15 years later. Mr Amery had refused the position of Colonial Secretary unless there was a separate Ministry for the Dominions, viewing them as two distinct roles and that the Commonwealth and Empire were not the same.

The Conference began on the 19th of October 1926 and continued until the 22nd of November. Balfour’s plans laid the basis for the completed declaration, and despite slight concern about the wording from South African and Canadian delegates, were essentially passed with little amendments. When it was released, it was eagerly accepted by much of the public and the press, with Amery stating it was the second most important British political document after the Magna Carta.

The Statute of Westminster

Nevertheless, Lord Balfour did not live to see his work enacted, as the Constitutional issues of turning the Declaration into law took a remarkable five years. This period also saw the 1930 Imperial Conference, where further issues were debated and the concept of Imperial Preference received a second hearing. Whilst Amery replaced Joseph Chamberlain in pushing it, Winston Churchill resisted it; he was a firm believer in the Angloshpere rather than the Commonwealth and an great supporter of Free Trade. The Conservative Party, the bastion of Imperial Preference, lost the election in 1929 and the Conference saw little action taken, apart from agreeing to another conference on such economic ideas. That would be the 1932 Imperial Economic Conference.

When it Balfour Declaration finally reached Parliament in an act it stated that the Crown was “the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations … united by a common allegiance to the Crown”. Realising the historical significance of the Act, it was given the title “The Statute of Westminster”, bringing to a successful conclusion the years of planning.

While the act has been amended in the British codebooks, and amended and repealed in many others, it serves not only as a signpost to the creation of the Commonwealth as an “fee association” of nations “equal in status”.

Conclusion

As the supernova of the Imperial Federation League shrank into a nebula of scattered ideas, it left behind many ideas that would be carried further. Chief among them was the idea that a union would not be Imperial, and would rather be an association could be freely beneficial to all, without one nation being the ‘top-dog’ so to speak. This was understandably popular in the Dominions in the 1930s and 1940s, in the ex-African colonies in the 1960s and ‘70s and still today, must remain a major part of any proposals for the Commonwealth. In many cases, there is what is referred to as “historical baggage”, which continues so create risks for suggestions. The British, who voted to Leave the EU and ‘restore sovereignty’, must remember that just as to many of them the EU was a foreign entity running their lives from overseas, so too was the British Empire to most Commonwealth nations.

As mentioned many times before by many people the Commonwealth is a family, but we are a scarred, sometimes dysfunctional family. It will take time to improve relations, and any association must be freely beneficial to all equally – the spectre of neo-colonialism ruined the first attempt at closer economic integration, and it can very easily indeed ruin the second.

The future from 1931 to 1947 and beyond would see the development of the Commonwealth, the creation of the Commonwealth Republics and the effects of decolonialism on the Commonwealth. In this period the Commonwealth would be universally seen to have ceased to be an appendage to the Empire – the goal of its designers and philosophers had been working towards for 200 years.

1. Introduction

2. History to Date

A. 1756-1815

B.1815 – 1898

C. 1899-1931

D. 1932 to the Present

3. Global Role & Work

4. Issues facing the CW – Continuing Relevance & The Future

5. Why closer relations & Freer Trade?

Pt 2: Closer Ties

6. Inter-CW Proposals – Historical & Existing

7. Inter-CW Proposals – CANZUK