Seeking a family consensus? Anglo-dominion relations and the failed Imperial Conference of 1941

Fedorowich, Kent

Abstract

This essay investigates the governmental pressures behind the demands for a conference and the reasons why it never took place. Crucially, it explores the various and competing strategic, foreign and domestic anxieties that forced three of the dominion leaders to contemplate such a meeting. At times, quarrels between each dominion and London at this critical stage of the war were acute and potentially divisive. However, when the idea of a summit was finally vetoed, why then had the leaders from Australia, Canada and New Zealand visited England separately? What does this failed conference say about the tensions within the Commonwealth alliance at a pivotal moment during the war and the competing demands between Great Britain and the dominions to seek a family consensus? In addition, what does it reveal about the personalities in power and the pressures they faced at home? Most importantly, what does it divulge about Churchill as a wartime leader when his only friends and allies, especially after the fall of France in June 1940, were the dominions?

• Online Publication Date: Sep 30, 2019
• Publication Date: Sep 30, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 27, 2019
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Pages: 245-275
• Book Title: British World Policy and the Projection of Global Power, c.1830–1960
• Chapter Number: 12
• ISBN: 9781107198852
• Keywords: British Empire, Commonwealth alliance, Churchill, imperialism
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1444538
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/diplomatic-and-international-history/british-world-policy-and-projection-global-power-c18301960?format=HB
• Contract Date: Jun 1, 2019