In his book ‘Engage the Enemy more closely’ Correlli Barnett questions the value of the empire to Britain – ‘For in retrospect, it can be seen that it was an illusion for the British to believe that the Commonwealth and Empire made Britain a world power. Rather the strategic and economic balance sheet in 1941 demonstrates the that the Commonwealth and Empire (with the notable exception of Canada and perhaps South Africa) were not an asset but a drain on Britain’s strength…..the imperial pink splashed across the map of the world did not represent strength, as the British romantically believed, but one of the most outstanding examples of strategic overstretch in history’. In the first place, Britain, an island in the northern seas, would not have already become entangled in a war in the Mediterranean and Middle East if it had not been for the British naval and military presence developed in this theatre in the last century and a half in order to protect the imperial routes to India, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. Yet the contributions thus far made to Britain’s war against Germany and Italy by Australia, New Zealand and India – some five divisions and six cruisers – were too small to balance the enormous British commitment of military and material resources to the Middle East and the deployment of about a third of the RN to the Mediterranean. Nor did it make up for the British troops stationed in India and further British garrisons in Burma and Malaya. In any event, the approach of war with Japan was to draw Dominion ships and divisions back from the Mediterranean and Middle East to the defence of their own countries. The military and naval contributions of the Empire lying east of Suez to Britain’s own struggle in Europe therefore did not even begin to compensate for the British obligation to wage an extra war against Japan in the Empire’s defence by land and above all by sea…. Nor, in the second place, did the Empire and Commonwealth east of Suez contribute an economic asset of such value to Britain as in itself to warrant preserving at the cost of an extra maritime war. India, poverty stricken and backward, devoid of raw materials, actually drew on British shipping resources in order to fill her essential needs for imports. Australia and New Zealand, which had been among Britain’s major peacetime sources of meat and dairy produce, had now dwindled to minor importance in this regard because it was uneconomic in shipping capacity to haul such supplies over the 12,000 miles from these dominions rather than over the much shorter Atlantic routes from North and South America. Burma and Borneo, for their part, were relatively minor producers of oil. Even Malaya, the most single valuable territory in the British Empire and a prolific earner of dollars, producing a third of the world’s rubber as well as over half the world’s tin, was hardly worth a war with a great power on top of an existing war. And the civilian trade and supply of the whole Indian Ocean area (the core of the traditional British imperial structure) from Australasian to East Africa, from India and South-East Asia to Egypt, were swallowing by the second half of 1941 over 331,000 tons of shipping in continuous employment – enough to bring an extra 800,000 tons of desperately needed imports to Britain across the North Atlantic’. Is this a fair assessment of the Empire’s value to Britain in the 30’s and any guesses as to how events would turn out if Britain’s retreat from East of Suez had occurred before instead of after WW2?
The author forgets to analyze what would have happened if Germany would not have to direct large amounts of resources to fight in Africa, which was not only a large drain in itself, but which also caused Unternehmen Zitadelle to be cancelled because the Allies could get forces to Sicily from North Africa. If Britain hadn't fought in Asia, Japan would also most likely have had free play. This would have meant that USA and especially Russia would have needed to divert more forces to Asia, which would have meant a weakened front against Germany.
I think in pure economic terms the Empire by 1940 had become more of a burden than a benefit, however this does not take into account the value as Christian has stated of the British, Commonwealth and Dominion forces fighting for Asia against the Japanese and Africa against the Germans. Yes the Empire was an Economic drain, that was why Britain was in the process of dismantling it by 1940 and creating the Commonwealth. I would imagine however that the costs of propping up South East Asian Democracies or Dependancies against an external threat on an external basis would have been much greater drain on the national economy than the direct involvment was. I think a fairer question would be by that point what the value of Britain was to the Empire rather than the other way round.
Its true that if Britain had not opposed the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia would have been a whole lot easier. The Japanese had such an easy time defeating whatever forces the Empire could spare to commit in South-East Asia that whatever loss of time or resources to the Japanese by the defending forces must have been strategically insignificant. Rather than sending in half-hearted and piecemeal attempts to defend her overseas possessions, these wasted men and resources would have been better spent in Europe where it mattered most. But then again we must examine the importance of these colonies to the Japanese. These colonies were the reason she decided to invade in the first place, and her reasons for waging war were a whole lot more compelling than Hitler's. This, however, didn't stop them from losing the war and whatever economic benefits attained by her rapid moderinzation. Perhaps the Commonwealth perceived that giving away these colonies to Japan would benefit their enemy greatly, but then again they never had the means to defend them in a competent manner.
