World War I and the Empire at its Height

During World War I (1914-1918) the British Empire remained essentially united. The Dominions, as those colonies granted responsible government were now called, were loyal to Britain at first, apart from a minor and easily repressed Boer revolt in 1914. However, the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in 1916 marked the beginning of an increasing desire for independence in many of the colonies.

Troops from the Dominion countries were prominent in World War I, but as the sacrifices of war increased after 1916, loyalty to Britain waned ([weɪn] падать, ослабевать). Conscription ([kən'skrɪpʃ(ə)n] воинская повинность; набор (в армию), a system by which private citizens were forced to join the armed services, was rejected in Australia in 1917 and was strongly opposed in French Québec [k(w)ɪ'bek].

The war expanded the British Empire to its greatest extent. The Treaty of Versailles [vɛə'saɪ] in 1919 gave Britain most of the German Empire in Africa, (now Burundi[bu'rundɪ], Rwanda [ru'ændə]and Tanganyika (the mainland part of present Tanzania). while the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (dynastic state centered in what is now Turkey) in the Middle East led to the British acquisition of Palestine ['pæləstaɪn] (the state of Israel ['ɪzreɪl] was established in what was traditionally Palestine) and Iraq [ɪ'rɑ:k] in 1918.

However, the war also accelerated support for nationalist movements in the colonies, and the British government found that it could do little to stop this trend. After World War I Britain was exhausted, and the empire was overextended. As a result, during the 1920s and 1930s Britain searched for policies that would both reduce the cost of the empire and the risk of its falling apart. It granted independence to Egypt in 1922 and to Iraq in 1932. The demands of the Dominions for full constitutional autonomy were granted in the Statute of Westminster in 1931, which eliminated all control by the British Parliament over dominion government. The statute also established the British Commonwealth of Nations as an association of equal and independent states united by common allegiance ([ə'li:ʤ(ə)n(t)s] лояльность, верность) to the British Crown. After the Irish Revolution (1912-1922), southern Ireland had been granted dominion status as the Irish Free State, though in 1937 it withdrew from the empire and became the Ireland.

In India discontent with British rule increased throughout this period, culminating in the Amritsar ([‘əm'ritsər] a city in northwestern India) Massacre, in which the British army fired indiscriminately ([‘ɪndɪ'skrɪmɪnətlɪ] без разбора) at demonstrators, killing nearly 400. Though the British colonial government passed constitutional reforms in 1919 and 1935, tensions remained high. In its African colonies, Britain did not as yet have to cope with nationalism and concentrated on administering the populations indirectly and inexpensively through existing local institutions. Nevertheless, there was occasional African resistance to colonial control, especially where the British levied (['levɪ] взимать (налог) new taxes or interfered with traditional practices.

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