This chapter examines the independence days and national commemorations of these four pseudo-states. It looks closely at the moments in which these four claimed to achieve sovereignty, and will consider the aesthetics and symbolism of the dates of their actual declarations of independence. Furthermore, it will examine how they each created national symbols and rituals, the ways in which these national days were subsequently commemorated, and how these national commemorations changed over time.

This chapter explores how these efforts at resolving the empire’s crisis began to fail and produce unintended consequences. It traces the breakdown of cooperation on naval strategy and shipbuilding among colonial governments, especially that of Wilfrid Laurier’s and Robert Borden’s naval bills in Canada. It shows that the deep involvement of colonists in the forthcoming world war was not a certain proposition between 1910 and 1914, and that the empire’s security crisis threatened to derail colonial state-building projects in India and South Africa.

Spanning the years 1907 to 1909, this chapter deals mainly with two crucial imperial conferences. The first debated the constitutional meaning of “Dominion status” for a select few British colonies, while the second looked to the empire’s geostrategic survival in light of the German naval threat. At both conferences, British and colonial representatives responded to constitutional and security crises, hoping to forge a new imperial community in which the rights of membership hinged on contribution to collective security.

Chapter 5 takes the narrative to the outbreak of the First World War, and compares the colonial response to the mobilization for South Africa at the beginning of the book. The chapter focuses mainly on conscription, the ultimate expression of state sovereignty over individuals, and the way conscription forced a reckoning with unresolved political questions across the empire. It covers the fraught attempts by the British government to resolve the racial exceptions listed in Military Service Act 1916, and the debates in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada about whether to follow in Britain’s footsteps on their own unprecedented military manpower problems.