ABSTRACT
The Dominions and colonies contributed 5 million fighting troops to the war effort, half of them from India, which was considerably more than they had contributed in the First World War. The greatest uncertainty surrounded colonies that were deemed to be important strategically to Britain: useful, that is, for defending what was still regarded as her ‘world role’. Cyprus was a more difficult guerrilla war for the British than Malaya, because they had a smaller local minority to ally with, and the opposition of most world opinion. The Mediterranean and the Middle East were, and always had been, an area of worldwide concern. One thing was the need to uphold Britain’s material interests in the world, so far as was possible; and what seemed possible to Ernest Bevin – Labour’s Foreign Secretary – was still quite a lot.
