The Lion and the Springbok presents an account of the dynamics and divergences of the 'uneasy special relationship' of Britain and South Africa. From the bruising experience of the South African War (1899–1902) to South Africa's withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961, the authors chart this relationship in all its political, economic, cultural and geostrategic aspects. All the major disputes are discussed including the struggle for the High Commission Territories, the crisis over Seretse Khama's marriage and the transfer of the Simon's Town naval base. These issues trace, for the most part, a continuing deterioration in relations, as Afrikaner nationalist identity hardened and South African politics slid into the extremes of apartheid. The perceptions each side had of the other after 1948 are examined through representations in the media, and an epilogue considers the reasons for the return of the 'New South Africa' to the Commonwealth in 1994.
The whole world is rocking': British governments and a dysfunctional imperial system, 1918-1945 'Our born leaders are dead.' 1 Of course we cannot prove that the British empire would have been better run if so many young men had not died in the First World War, which claimed the lives of over 37,000 officers, many of whom would have gone into politics and imperial administration. What we can say is that those who fought and survived and moved into public life and the service of the empire believed themselves to be merely the runts of what had promised to be 'a great generation': 'the better chaps were gone'. 2 They were, as one Cambridge don put it, 'most of them not meant to be our leaders at all. They are only the last and worst of our war substitutes.' Almost all of them were marked by 'moral and psychological shock', haunted by memories, guilty in their survival. Almost all intelligent young men of whatever political party were active supporters of the League of Nations, and attracted by disarmament. Many turned to pacifism, or something like it. 3 Some turned to communism. Another war was something to be avoided at all costs. They felt driven to serve, specifically 'to strive for the creation and organisation of peace, above all things', and to forge a better world. 4 The war caused at least one serious defection from the colonial service. Arthur Tedder, who had been posted to Fiji early in 1914, joined the Royal Flying Corps and remained in the RAF, rising to become Lord Tedder, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, deputy allied commander on 'D'day, Chief of the Air Staff, and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. 5 If the immediate postwar years were ones of painful adjustment for individuals, they were near-nightmares for those in charge of the empire. The 'Great War' destroyed empires, the Muslim Caliphate, and ancient 30 1
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