{"id":39254,"date":"2017-07-10T03:00:35","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T07:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39254"},"modified":"2017-07-09T08:41:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T12:41:00","slug":"the-end-of-the-british-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/10\/the-end-of-the-british-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"The end of the British Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kai Melling<\/a> takes an unusually anti-American stand in this quick explanation of the decline and fall of the British Empire:<\/p>\n

The common narrative is that the USA inherited the British Empire as an aftermath of World War 2. But this phrasing is misleading, because the USA actively designed and exploited the political, mental and military framework of WW2 to Britain\u2019s disadvantage.<\/p>\n

Churchill believed that Britain and the USA would be eternal partners, with British statesmen playing Greeks to America\u2019s Romans. But when Britain was in her darkest hour, Roosevelt shook her down for every dime. Poring over a list of British assets in the Western Hemisphere, FDR \u201creacted with the coolness of a WASP patrician: \u2018Well, they aren\u2019t bust \u2014 there\u2019s lots of money there.\u2019\u201d (Alan Clark)<\/p>\n

Looking back, Alan Clark was appalled by Churchill\u2019s groveling to the Americans: \u201cChurchill\u2019s abasement of Britain before the United States has its origins in the same obsession (with Hitler). The West Indian bases were handed over; the closed markets for British exports were to be dismantled; the entire portfolio of (largely private) holdings in America was liquidated. \u201cA very nice little list,\u201d was Roosevelt\u2019s comment when the British ambassador offered it. \u201cYou guys aren\u2019t broken yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Lend-Lease aid could begin, Britain was forced to sell all her commercial assets in the United States and turn over all her gold. FDR sent his own ship to pick up the last $50 million in British gold reserves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not only to be skinned but flayed to the bone,\u201d Churchill wailed to his colleagues, and he was not far off. Churchill drafted a letter to FDR saying that if America continued along this line, she would \u201cwear the aspect of a sheriff collecting the last assets of a helpless debtor.\u201d It was, said the prime minister, \u201cnot fitting that any nation should put itself wholly in the hands of another.\u201d But dependent as Britain was on America, Churchill reconsidered, and rewrote his note in more conciliatory tones.<\/p>\n

FDR knew exactly what he was doing. \u201cWe have been milking the British financial cow, which had plenty of milk at one time, but which has now about become dry,\u201d Roosevelt confided to one Cabinet member. \u201cGreat Britain became a poor, though deserving cousin\u2014not to Roosevelt\u2019s regret. So far as it is possible to read his devious mind, it appears that he expected the British to wear down both Germany and themselves. When all independent powers had ceased to exist, the United States would step in and run the world.\u201d (A.J.P. Taylor)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Sean Gabb<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kai Melling takes an unusually anti-American stand in this quick explanation of the decline and fall of the British Empire: The common narrative is that the USA inherited the British Empire as an aftermath of World War 2. But this phrasing is misleading, because the USA actively designed and exploited the political, mental and military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,23,13,230],"tags":[432,866,864],"class_list":["post-39254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-history","category-india","category-usa","category-ww2","tag-diplomacy","tag-fdr","tag-winstonchurchill"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ad8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39254"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39255,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39254\/revisions\/39255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}