Colonial Office policy towards British West Africa in World Wars

Fewzi Borsali

Contact between human groups and subsequent changes constitute immutable characteristics of human existence, resulting in the domination of some groups and subjugation and subordination of others, whose preservation and challenge and lead to and result from wars. The First and Second World Wars as well colonial wars expressed a challenge to the prevailing balance of power among some imperial European countries, whose survival depended on their respective colonies’ contribution. British West African colonies, like others, had to assist with human, financial and material resources in both World Wars, their exploitation and development was the British «War of Independence». Lord Milner, Secretary of State for War 1918‑1819, and for the Colonies 1919‑1921, insisted that «the colonial assets had to be taken over and exploited on a large scale by the British Government and the profits to be used to pay off Britain’s debt». His successor, Leo Amery, believed that Britain’s task was to multiply markets overseas, and particularly develop Africa’s vast potentialities. Lord Moyne, the Colonial Office Secretary of State, instructed colonial governors in June 1941 to mobilize colonial resources for the war effort causing diversion of resources aimed initially at the 1940 declared policy of Colonial Development and Welfare. Mobilisation of such resources required colonial collaboration; and the British had to concede self‑government to some of her dominions after the First World War (WWI) and to others after the Second War (WWII). But they did not consider the colonies mature enough so as to grant them the same political rights. By 1938, MacDonald, Labour Secretary of State (1938‑1940), was convinced that «it might take generations or even centuries for some colonial people to stand on their own feet». The traditional elites were subservient whereas the new western educated elite was initially reformist to gradually become to some extent revolutionary. However, both wars pressed Colonial officials to change their attitude towards the latter from apathy (due to their exclusion from policy and decision making machinery) to a reconstruction of collaboration, avoiding thus a kind of colonial armed resistance. This paper attempts to examine British West African contribution in both World Wars, and the Colonial Office policy towards colonial opposition, basing the research on primary official unpublished and published sources.

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ISBN: 978-989-26-1631-5
eISBN: 978-989-26-1632-2
DOI: 10.14195/978-989-26-1632-2_6
Área: Artes e Humanidades
Páginas: 121-155
Data: 2019

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