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6 - Britain and the Cold War, 1945–1955

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

By
Anne Deighton
Edited by
Melvyn P. Leffler  and
Odd Arne Westad
Melvyn P. Leffler
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Odd Arne Westad
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

In 1945, Britain was an activist world power. It possessed the world’s second-largest national navy, and its Empire–Commonwealth was genuinely global. The Dominions stretched from Canada to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; it had colonial possessions from the north to the south of the African continent, to the east of Suez, in South and Southeast Asia, as well as many scattered, and often strategic, island outposts. The ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Empire was India.

On VE Day, 8 May 1945, Britain and its loyal Empire–Commonwealth had 4 million troops serving overseas for the Allied cause. Wartime summit meetings had reinforced both the reality and the image of a Britain as a world power as Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States parleyed with the Soviet leader, Iosif Stalin, while the tide of fighting brought them all towards victory. It was therefore inevitable that the British would have a large role in shaping the untidy transition that was to come, and that would transform the world from war to an uncertain peace.

Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge History of the Cold War , pp. 112 - 132
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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