- Define and explain Why Empires Ended in your own words
- Use key terms such as Nationalism accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
Between 1945 and the 1970s, dozens of new nations won independence as European empires collapsed. Decolonisation was driven by determined nationalist movements — and accelerated by the Second World War's destruction of imperial power. This chapter examines why empires fell, how independence was won, and what came after.
This lesson focuses on Why Empires Ended: war, debt and nationalism: the forces that broke up the European empires.
War, debt and nationalism: the forces that broke up the European empires.
Key ideas
The Second World War broke the empires
The war bankrupted Britain, shattered the myth of European invincibility — Japan's 1942 capture of Singapore stunned the British Empire — and armed colonial soldiers who returned home demanding rights. Empires that survived the war could not afford, politically or financially, to keep their colonies by force.
Freedom brought new challenges
New nations inherited borders drawn by empires, dividing peoples and sowing conflict — partition in 1947 caused massive displacement and violence. Yet independence also brought pride, democracy movements and new voices in world affairs. Historians debate whether decolonisation was a triumph, a tragedy, or — most often — both.
Key term — Nationalism: The belief that a people should govern themselves as an independent nation. Anti-colonial nationalism drove independence movements.
Name two factors that weakened European empires after 1945.
The financial ruin of the Second World War and the spread of anti-colonial nationalism (also: superpower pressure, the Atlantic Charter's promise of self-determination).
Answer: The financial ruin of the Second World War and the spread of anti-colonial nationalism (also: superpower pressure, the Atlantic Charter's promise of self-determination).
- Saying Britain simply 'gave' independence Independence was won through sustained pressure and struggle. 'Granting' independence misdescribes who drove the process.
- Treating partition as an afterthought Partition was central to 1947: it created two states and caused enormous displacement and violence. Any account of Indian independence must confront it.
Practice
The nationalist leader who led Ghana (the Gold Coast) to independence in 1957, the first sub-Saharan African colony to do so.
Borders divided ethnic groups and forced rival peoples together, sowing conflict in new states.
The process by which colonies gained independence from imperial rule.
1947; partition was the division of British India into independent India and Pakistan.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "Nationalism"?
What is the historians' debate about decolonisation?
- Why Empires Ended: war, debt and nationalism: the forces that broke up the European empires.
- The Second World War broke the empires: The war bankrupted Britain, shattered the myth of European invincibility — Japan's 1942 capture of Singapore stunned the British Empire — and armed colonial soldiers who returned home demanding rights.
- Decolonisation: The process by which colonies gained independence from imperial rule, peaking between 1945 and the 1970s.
- Watch out for: saying Britain simply 'gave' independence