World War I Was The End For Colonial Powers

European battlefields, but also colonies such as German East Africa became war scenarios. The conflict gave the Irish an idea, so they tried to strike for independence from the British Empire.

France recruited 220,000 workers from its empire, Algeria, Indochina, Morocco, Tunisia and Madagascar, as well as from China to work behind the lines and to fight under the French colors.

The conflict took its toll on the Indian subcontinent. Britain, the ruling colonial power, assembled 1.5 million Indian soldiers during the war. 90,000 got killed. More than 150,000 Indian soldiers were arranged in Europe from September 1914 on. The great majority of Indian troops had to fight in Mesopotamia against the Ottoman Empire. Many were almost forced to fight on the Eastern African front.

World War I was indeed the beginning of the end for colonial powers. The myth of the so-called “superiority” was no longer possible. Moreover, the colonial authorities betrayed the promises they had made to give a good reason for a massive recruitment.

However, the real process of decolonization began with World War II.

A large amount of the world population was living under the yoke of colonial powers, before the World War II broke out. The alleged invulnerability of colonial powers and the white supremacy were put into question and challenged by the outcomes of the World War II.

After the war the colonial system was condemned, so gradually all the countries that had been subjected to the colonial powers quickly gained independence. Clement Attlee, the Labor Prime Minister of Britain, understood that independence for India was inevitable. He had only to achieve a tranquil transition. The negotiations were very difficult.

The Independence for India and Pakistan w...

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...lmost enslavement of colonized people put to work.

Colonial domination brought alienation and despair. Frantz Fanon, for example, has written that “colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures and destroys it. This work of a devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today.”

Some authors maintained that the social impact of colonialism depended on the number of settlers of European origin, who imposed their customs on the native population. Many different of ethnic and religious discrimination was also another legacy of colonial occupation.

This topic has not yet been worn out. There are still many things to say about the phenomenon of colonialism…