Friend or foe?
The Empire turns
Elsewhere, people were just as unwilling to be treated as inferior when, from 1916, the British Government called on them to provide as many troops as possible.
Indian bicycle-mounted troops at the crossroads on the Fricourt-Mametz
road during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916
Imperial War Museum (Q3983)
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It has been estimated that more than 800,000 Indians enlisted by the last year of the war, with nearly 10% of that number losing their lives. This is recognised in the many Indian names on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres. Nevertheless, at the time, these soldiers were frequently badly treated by British military authorities. Even from the start, Indian administrators had to produce a set number of men from each district, and often used dishonest or violent methods to get what they wanted. This less than ideal background to the involvement of many Indians in the fighting caused rising resentment and some public unrest – notably after the war in 1919, in the Punjab city of Amritsar, when 400 people were killed. This marked the start of Gandhi's mass civil disobedience campaign and the road to Indian independence.
In the West Indies, there was much support for the war, as exemplified by military units such as the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). More than 16,000 Caribbean men joined the BWIR, serving in Europe. This support stretched beyond the provision of men, with many communities also raising funds for the war effort.
At the same time the shape of the British Empire was changing, with an increasing number of colonies becoming self-governing dominions. These included Australia (1900), New Zealand (1907), South Africa (1910) and the Irish Free State (1921). They were all separate signatories to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and wanted to assert their independence from Britain. The prime ministers of the participating countries adopted the Balfour Report, defining the Dominions as autonomous communities within the British Empire, at the Imperial Conference in 1926. Each dominion would be equal in status, united by common allegiance to the Crown, and members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Conflict at home
The changing status of the post-war Empire was also having an impact in the UK. Many men from the West Indies decided that, in the light of their service to Britain, they had as much right to settle in the UK as anyone else. There were around 20,000 black people in Britain in 1918, many of whom had served in the military or merchant marines. They often did not receive the sort of welcome they had hoped would greet men who had fought for the country. Many white people feared for their jobs in a tough economic environment caused by the demobilisation of soldiers and, as ever, they turned their fear into aggression against the most obvious people from a different background.
Intimidation and victimisation caused many problems. Often white men would steal the passports of black workers. These were frequently required to get work and without them the workers were, effectively, denied employment.
As work in factories and mines declined, many Caribbean workers moved to seaports and London to find work, often encountering increased hostility. This was often not restricted to work issues, as can be seen from some of the press reports of the time:
'In consequence of the infatuation of white girls for the Black men in the district some of the inhabitants are greatly incensed against Blacks.' (Express, 7 July 1917)
Headlines screamed about 'The Black Peril' or 'The Black Invasion'.
There were riots in Cardiff, Liverpool and London between 1919 and 1921. The Government repatriated hundreds of black people and brought in the Aliens Order of 1920 and the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order of 1925. In part, the authorities were responding to the lobbying of white-run seamen's unions against the employment of 'coloured aliens', even though people from the West Indies were constitutionally subjects of the Empire.
As men returned to the West Indies and Asia, many were disillusioned with what they had found in Europe, but some were enlightened by it. On the one hand they had felt some hostility from white people, but on the other hand they had seen that working class white people worked and didn't get the automatic advantages conferred on them in many of the colonies. If this was the case in Europe, they thought, why should it not be the case in the colonies? They became less prepared to accept the oppressive conditions in their own countries, and black nationalist ideology, led by the likes of Marcus Garvey and others, became a force to be reckoned with. There were protest actions and riots throughout the Empire, including in British Honduras, Jamaica and Grenada.