India, the Middle East, and China after 1918

Europe’s powers drew men and resources into the conflict from distant shores, and their preoccupation with war for four years created opportunities for change elsewhere. For example, World War I significantly shifted patterns of world trade and international economics, with non-European nations such as Japan and Canada emerging from the war with much larger shares of world exports. Between 1913 and 1925 Canada’s share rose from 2.4 to 4.4 percent, and Japan’s from 1.7 to 3.0 percent. The inability of Europe’s major trading nations to satisfy their previous export markets during the war also led to a number of opportunities for other overseas industries to carve out new or larger international markets, particularly in the case of Latin America and the British Dominions (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand), which began to complement their high levels of food exports with manufactured goods.

Latin and South America were barely touched by the war in a physical sense. However, changing trade patterns and European ideological influences did have some impact. In Brazil, for example, there was a brief socialist uprising in Rio de Janeiro, the capital, after an unsuccessful three-day general strike in January 1919. Argentina did well from the war, building on its existing power as a major exporter of food, especially of beef and corn. Mexico was gripped by revolution in 1920, but it was largely a domestic struggle that dated back to 1910 and in no way primarily related to the outcome of World War I. There were anti-British riots in Trinidad, Jamaica, and British Honduras, but none of these left lasting marks that were primarily attributable to the war.

Africa was directly affected by the large number of territorial transfers following the war, with former German colonies—Southwest Africa, German East Africa, Cameroon, and Togoland—being taken over by Britain or France. However, this upheaval was merely a change of colonial master for most ordinary Africans. This chapter, therefore, looks at the consequences of World War I on those non-European regions that were most powerfully affected in the long term, namely India, the Middle East, and China.

India and Britain

The British Empire was never larger than after the signing of the World War I peace treaties, but it quickly became clear that the conflict had seriously weakened Britain’s ability to maintain control of its vast empire. Apart from the obvious fact that Britain had fewer resources, other factors, most notably war weariness, liberal ideals, and widespread pacifism, led to diminished domestic support for continuing the sacrifices needed to defend the empire. Overstretched by commitments abroad and undermined by economic problems at home, some began to view the empire’s far-flung colonies as a moral embarrassment and a military liability rather than a prestigious resource. One such individual was socialist Annie Besant, who became president of the British-based Indian Home Rule League in 1916. Yet many Britons clung to the ideal of empire as if the very survival of Britain itself depended on it, and for the imperialists and conservatives, India was the lynchpin of the whole empire, the "jewel in the crown," whose loss was inconceivable.

The short-term need for colonial troops and resources in World War I had long-term consequences for the integrity of the empire in India and elsewhere. India already had a strong, constitutional nationalist movement before the war, led by the Indian National Congress, which had been founded in 1885. However, the sacrifices and experiences of Indians during the war fueled and radicalized the independence movement as never before. The reasons were manifold. First, many Indians saw greater independence as the price Britain had to pay for Indian help in the war. Indian nationalists believed that the wartime shortages and increased taxation, as well as the strict censorship laws the British had introduced, were the price of future progress toward devolved self-government and eventual independence.

Second, the prejudice that was suffered by Indian soldiers in the Middle East and on the western front made it clear that the war was not a struggle of imperial equals against a common enemy, but a European-centered war for which an ungrateful Britain needed temporary Indian help. Once the war was over, India’s contribution to victory was acknowledged but not rewarded. Finally, witnessing at first hand white Europeans being killed in huge numbers diminished the prestige of the British in Indian eyes and clearly demonstrated that the British were less than invincible. Therefore, the war changed the attitudes of many previously loyal Indian soldiers and civilians, causing them to question the ideal of empire in a fundamental way.

When the war ended, wartime restrictions such as press censorship and imprisonment without trial were not repealed. The Rowlatt Act (or the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act) deliberately extended this denial of civil rights in 1919. Many Indians felt betrayed, and support for Indian nationalism grew. Protests in the province of Punjab were especially violent and led to the imposition of martial law in an area that had traditionally supplied many recruits to the British-officered Indian Army and local police. This reaction to the Rowlatt Act, which saw unusual levels of cooperation between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, led to the key event in postwar India—the Amritsar massacre.

The massacre was a deliberate attempt by an overzealous British officer to intimidate the increasingly rebellious Punjabis into submission. Tensions in Amritsar, the Sikh holy city, were high after an attack on a group of Europeans left five dead and a female missionary, Frances Sherwood, severely beaten. The local military commander, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, issued a number of humiliating communal punishments, including the infamous "crawling order" that required Indians passing the place of the attack to crawl on their hands and knees. A few days later, on April 13, 1919, an unarmed demonstration of around 10,000 people entered the large walled area of Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar. Without any warning, Dyer ordered his 50 Gurkha and Indian troops to fire on the crowd. They kept firing for nearly 10 minutes while the crowd was unable to escape. At least 379 men, women, and children were killed, around 1,200 were wounded, and Dyer made no attempt to offer medical assistance to the injured. Adding insult to injury, he was hailed by imperialists in Britain as the Savior of the Punjab. Dyer was eventually reprimanded by a commission of inquiry and forced to retire on half pay, but he was not court-martialed, and some senior politicians actually passed a resolution condemning his forced retirement.

Indian nationalists saw the failure to punish Dyer adequately as a reflection of British insincerity, despite its rhetoric of reform and devolved power. In the very English words of Jawaharlal Nehru (the future Congress Party leader), Dyer’s deed was "absolutely immoral, indecent…the height of bad form." Yet the mixed reaction to Dyer revealed that many in Britain still held a very old-fashioned and authoritarian view of India and how to keep hold of it.

Dyer’s massacre was also a frustrated reaction to the most effective demonstrations against British rule in India for decades. A new and inspiring Indian leader, Mohandas Gandhi, had developed a form of peaceful resistance known as the satyagraha (truth force). This nonviolent resistance included fasting, demonstrations, the deliberate courting of arrest, the boycott of British goods, and one-day strikes in which all work and commercial activity ceased. These activities intensified after the massacre, developing into a full-fledged noncooperation movement that lasted two years, from 1920 to 1922. By boycotting schools, courts, and other institutions of British power, the movement hoped to achieve self-rule. British control of India came closer to collapse than at any time since the Indian Mutiny of 1857. However, the Rowlatt protests and the noncooperation movement often generated violent riots and murders that were not part of Gandhi’s strategy. To the surprise of many, Gandhi suddenly called off the protests and subjected himself to three days of fasting as a penance for the violence he had unwittingly unleashed.

However, Gandhi and the satyagraha had shaken British rule in India, and both would reemerge as key forces in the eventual independence of the subcontinent. Before Gandhi, Indian nationalist leaders were British-educated, upper-middle-class professionals who wore suits and gave speeches in English. Gandhi, although he was educated as a lawyer in London, added a new Indian and spiritual dimension to the movement. In doing so he broadened its appeal to the masses. Gandhi wore Indian dress at all times, studied the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, every day, and steadfastly rejected Western industrialism and materialism in favor of cottage industry and religious communities.

While Indians campaigned for self-rule, the British were trying to implement the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919. This was the first significant, albeit limited, gesture toward Indian self-rule. Central and provincial assemblies were freely elected by about 10 percent of the male population, and a system of joint Anglo-Indian administration was set up at the provincial level. Indians usually controlled areas like health, education, and local government affairs, while control of judicial, foreign, military, and most financial matters remained firmly in British hands. This reform and many others that followed were motivated more by a desire to hold on to India for as long as possible than a genuine commitment to eventual independence. Nevertheless, they represented real changes in the nature of government. India received a further measure of self-rule in the Government of India Act of 1935 and then outright independence in 1947. However, this came at the cost of partition into Muslim Pakistan and mainly Hindu India, as well as the deaths of more than a million people in clashes between Hindus and Muslims.