Tale of Two Empires

Winston Spencer Churchill--late Lieutenant of the 4th (the Queen's Own) Hussars, formerly of the 31st Punjab Infantry with the Malakand Field Force, the 21st Lancers with the Nile Expeditionary Force, veteran of the Battles of Omdurman and Spion Kop--was outraged. "Things are built up with great labor and are cast away with great shame and folly!", he cried in the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Attlee had just announced Britain's readiness to withdraw her troops from Egypt. Churchill's words were as powerless against the tide of history as the Queen's Own Hussars would have been. True to his promise, Churchill was not presiding over it, but the slow process of voluntary liquidation of Britain's Empire had begun. Britain was ready to give up large chunks of her colonies, dependencies and protectorates.

The dependent peoples for the first time had to admit the sincerity of Britain's intention to withdraw. In Cairo the inevitable protest riots were staged against a mild British request for a military alliance "between two equal nations having interests in common." But the Egyptians knew that Britain was making a painful concession in abandoning the great Alexandria naval base. Even the Cairo rioters last week cheered Prime Minister Attlee and Laborite Herbert Morrison.

India had even less reason to doubt British sincerity. Despite the failure of the Simla conference (see FOREIGN NEWS), Britain still considered it her mission to work out a plan for India's freedom. If she failed, said one Indian politician, "all leaders of both parties will be thrown out in six months, and in five years India will be 100% Communist."

Into the Vacuum. It was more than coincidence that, as Britain withdrew, the U.S.S.R. advanced further & further along its own imperial path. From Manchuria (where the Communists were pressing hard for a pro-Russian puppet regime) to Tangier (where Russia asked for and got a voice in international control), the Soviet Union was ready to take up the white man's burden. In Eastern Europe, Russia calmly proceeded to shape "friendly" governments toward the Soviet pattern. She was steadily pressing southward on the shield which Greece, Turkey and Iran form over the lower Middle East.

Iran was still the best current example of Russian imperialist techniques. Negotiations between the Teheran Government and the Russian-sponsored "Azerbaijan Provincial Government" broke down last week as Azerbaijan's boss Jafar Pishevari (a typical Communist-trained puppet) suddenly stepped up his demands on the Teheran Government, while his Russian-installed Radio Tabriz said: "We are ready to fight."

Another example was Russia's continued flirtation with the Arab League; the latest caress, said Arab bigwigs, was a Soviet promise to help them bring up the Palestine issue at U.N.

Russia scorned the direct methods of old-style expansion. She and her Communist parties had perfected the more modern and more deceptive weapons of infiltration, agitation, conspiracy. It was a kind of imperialism the Queen's Own Hussars had never known.

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