ADVANCE BRITANNIA

The end of a war, the end of an empire.

This second volume concludes Allport’s history that began with Britain at Bay (2020). He argues not so much that Britain won the war, as that it did not lose it. The heavy lifting was done on the Russian front and by the Americans, with help from strategic German miscalculation. Two themes emerge. The first was whether the war could have been over sooner, particularly if the Allies had advanced on Rome faster. Time and effort were expended in North Africa, and there was a growing distrust by Franklin D. Roosevelt that Winston Churchill was seeking to further Imperial ambitions using American troops. Churchill’s disastrous invasion of Greece’s Dodecanese islands did much to sour relations. The fall of Singapore and the occupation of Burma punctured British pride and led to the independence movements in former colonies—the most important being India. Secondly, the “area bombing” used by the British contrasted with the more nuanced American approach. The costly and deadly bombing of major German cities, among them Berlin, neither dampened German morale nor caused the expected disruptions. Allport is especially good at tracing themes in wartime that foreshadow later events. The Lend-Lease repayments immediately after the war established the subservient role that Britain now plays to the U.S. Likewise, the author’s chapters on full employment, the power of unions, and the rise of British Prime Minister Clement Attlee explain not only the Labour victory after the war, but the existing (if fraying) National Health Service and social welfare programs. Allport admits that for two decades, the war’s privation and rationing continued a drab existence. But he concludes optimistically that prosperity by the 1960s was far beyond prewar levels and that, apart from right-wing jingoists, Britons didn’t care much about losing an empire if their bathrooms were moved indoors and their holidays were abroad.

A bracing history that sheds light both backward and forward.