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The British Question, sometimes called the British Problem, is a dispute over the status of British colonies following the British Revolution (1924-1925), beginning approximately in mid-1925. Although a variety of temporary and permanent solutions have been proposed and implemented in various regions, it is considered largely unresolved.
Origins[]
- Main article: Collapse of the British Empire
As the British Revolution gradually swept the country, scattered and often confusing reports filtered out to the colonies, creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and unease. By the time the flight of the Royal Family to Canada was announced and London fell, most dominions and colonies faced widespread panic and growing unrest. Though largely self-sustaining, and with their own military forces, the Dominions turned inward - committed to maintaining order and ensuring their own survival. Without the promised aid from the Dominions or Britain itself, colonial administrations across the Empire faced the very real threat of revolt by their own native subjects, and India - the Empire's "Crown Jewel" - fell into civil war.
In China[]
The "Severn Note".
The British Question is often considered to have been raised by the controversial "Severn Note", sent by Hong Kong's Governor Claud Severn on the 24th of July 1925. Faced by the withdrawal of the China Station to Australasia, and Kuomintang troops massing nearby, Severn appealed to the German Governor-General in Tonkin for protection. Severn's appeal was soon answered by the arrival of 3,000 German colonial troops, and at this stage their presence was justified by the notion of collective security - that all foreign powers in China had a shared interest in ensuring their treaties were upheld.
However at the same time Britain's inability to defend its colonies was laid bare, and soon thereafter the tensions in East Asia, which had seemed largely resolved by the Tsingtau Accord three years earlier, were reignited. Fearing one or the other might seize the remainder of Britain's concessions and colonies in the East, both Germany and Japan raced to take whatever they could hold, with Germany taking Weihaiwei, while Japan seized large portions of both Shanghai and Tianjin. Stand-offs began on the streets of several major concessions, and the other powers with interests in China soon joined the action, most notably the United States. Most concessions remained partitioned well into 1928, and the situation became normalized.
A New York Times article about the Shanghai Scramble.
However in 1928, continuing German-Japanese tensions and China's chaotic internal conditions led to the Jade Wind Crisis, which escalated the situation considerably, and led the United States to offer to mediate, reduce tensions, and establish an acceptable peace. The subsequent Shanghai Conference justified earlier claims that Britain could no longer be considered "responsible" for the protection of its own colonies, making this the first time such claims were recognized by the British Government residing in Canada. Subsequently the Legation Treaty, a product of the conference, put the various international concessions in China under a single collectively-managed mandate, excluding Japan's Kwantung Leased Territory, Germany's Shandong Possessions, and Portuguese Macau, which were deemed to fall outside the treaty's remit.
Although the Legation Treaty can be considered a permanent solution to the British Question in China, as it nominally places all nations on equal footing, Britain is currently limited to an observer status on the Legation Council. It has long been suggested that a restored British Government may take issue with the nature of the treaty, and consider it to have been signed under duress.
In Southeast Asia[]
With the outbreak of the British Revolution, the Kaiserliche Marine would mobilize to seize control of the British colonies of Sarawak, Singapore, Malaya and Brunei, with various British Territories being occupied by either Germany or the new Australasian Confederation. these colonies were placed under "temporary" German control.
In Africa[]
The British Question is most often associated with the occupation of former British colonies by the forces of the German Empire and their incorporation into Mittelafrika, in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. As events unfolded in the Home Isles in 1924, the Statthalter of Mittelafrika, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, ordered and immediate expedition to ensure order was maintained across the continent. With most British forces either busy elsewhere or outright deserting, Germany was by and large unopposed in their actions in Eastern and Western Africa. The actual occupation nonetheless took weeks, and sometimes months to establish any sort of control over many interior regions. In the southern part of the continent, however, the then British Dominion of South Africa and Portugal, its formal ally, moved in to ensure the colonies stayed under the control of at least a friendly local garrison.
However, Germany leveraged its position of power relative to the crumbling Entente powers, and on June 1st, 1925, Alfred von Tirpitz presented the so-called June Ultimatum to King Manuel II of Portugal, known as the Second Ultimatum in Portugal itself. While such an agressive measure would have been otherwise unthinkable just a few months prior, Portugal and its Entente allies was powerless to resist it. Little of the United Kingdom, and even less of its military forces, remained in Europe, and it accepted the German demands: Nyasaland, occupied by Portugal, and Northern Rhodesia, under nominal South African protection, were to immediately handed over to the Kaiserreich, under a mandate of protection, until order was restored in Britain.
While nominally placed under the wing of the government of Mittelafrika, little actually changed in how the colonies were ran, and in some places, Governors like Nyasaland's Charles Calvert Bowring not only retained their positions, now had far more freedom to act than before. These colonial mandates are, according to law, temporary, and as such are considered British colonies under German trusteeship. This naturally raises the question of when, if ever, they should be handed back, as a decade has passed without any 'restoration of order' in Britain. While few Germans call those colonies home, parting with them, even in a cordial fashion, would be a blow to national pride, as would the loss of any overseas territory. In addition, after a decade with a lenient and sometimes negligent administration above them, many of the colonies are now operated almost independently, and some reform-minded administrators advocate allowing them to become independent, white led republics under the protection of the German Empire. However, any action other than the promised handover would likely burn any diplomatic bridges with the Royalists in Canada in a rather permanent fashion.