Original subtitles

For 200 years, Britain was the most powerful nation in the world.

From Canada to India, from Australia to Nigeria, from the Caribbean to South

Africa, the British Empire once ruled over a third of the people on Earth.

Newly discovered film, all in original color, reveals how the British viewed

their imperial possessions.

1906. Trooping the colour for Edward VII.

The zenith of imperial pride and pomp.

1919. A parade in Paris to celebrate the end of the First World War.

Victory brought new riches, but exposed a vulnerable empire.

Personal letters and diaries describe the experiences of the rulers and the

ruled. The British flag never flew over more powerful or united an empire than

now.

Never did our voice count for more in determining the future destinies of

mankind.

Why do I regard British rule as a curse?

It has impoverished the dumb million.

It has reduced us politically to system.

It has sapped the foundations of our culture.

Britain's imperial history is a story of contradiction, discovery and progress,

prejudice and oppression.

In 1926, Claude Fries Green filmed a journey from Land's End to John O

in colour.

The harbour town of St. I.

The busy streets of Cardiff.

London's Petticoat Lane.

This remarkable film captures the essence of Britain and her people.

By 1926 The British have emerged from the First World War tired but

Their new possessions span a million square miles.

Britain still has a passion for colonial rule and a desire to improve the lives

of her subjects.

Field Marshal Douglas Page.

The call for imperial unity is not the selfish and despairing cry of an outworn

people. The men who fought beside us in the Great War know that the old country,

with all its problems and its difficulties, is not played out yet.

But the grand optimism of empire is fading.

Britain, the mother country, is divided by class and wealth.

Her old industries, shipbuilding, textiles and coal are in decline.

Employers reject calls for higher wages.

The rise of trade unions threatens the old order.

In May 1926, the miners walk out of the pits and the rest of Britain's organised

labour follows.

The general strike.

Here is the last news bulletin for today.

His Eminence Cardinal Bourne made the following declaration.

There is no moral justification for a general strike of this character.

It is therefore a sin against the obedience which we owe to God.

From the Ronda Valley, a miner's letter to the workers weekly.

Some men have laboured in this colliery 25 years.

toiling so that their exploiters may live in luxury.

Then they are cast upon the scrapheap.

When a horse has served its purpose underground and become too old, it is

mercifully shot.

But when a man has served the same purpose, he is not shot, but left to

a mere pittance.

Yours fraternally, C .P. from Abbott Triddle.

After only nine days, the general strike is broken.

But it will be eight months before starvation drives the miners back to the

pits, forced to accept lower wages and longer hours.

Britain's ruling class has crushed the general strike with ease.

For decades, it has exercised power across the world, and nowhere more than

India.

December 1911.

The Delhi Durbar.

George V is honoured as emperor.

For the first time, colour film records an imperial event outside Britain.

The British have been in India for over 200 years.

Special correspondent to the Times, Stanley Reed, witnesses the imperial

splendour.

20 ,000 armed men with a striking array of guns.

Next, the imperial service troops.

The Maharaja of Bikaner takes personal command of his scarlet and white camel

call.

Then, the great event of the day.

The gallop passed in line.

They go by like the wind. Not a man unhorsed, not even a helmet set.

Grace Molyneux watches her husband, Major Edward Molyneux, ride past with

21st Lancers.

We had splendid seats.

It was far and away the best show we've seen yet.

It was all done with great dignity.

I think the natives must have been very impressed.

But beneath this extravagant display of imperial loyalty, there lies a fragile

Raj.

British rule in India has been challenged by a decade of nationalist

terrorist violence.

Viceroy Lord Harding remains resolute.

I need hardly say that the government of India has never for a moment thought

that the evolution of this country could be colonial self -government. The idea

is ridiculous and absurd.

One year later...

A Bengali revolutionary tries to assassinate Lord Harding.

He survives.

But it is another warning that British power in India is fading.

The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their

freedom, but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses and has

India.

We believe that India must sever the British connection and attain complete

independence.

has grown in strength and ambition.

In a series of reforms, Britain makes concessions towards Indian self

-government. But imperial zealots are horrified at the prospect of

the Raj.

Viscount Rothermere.

British rule in India is irreplaceable.

It has been bought by British lives and built up by British capital.

If we had not gone to India, she would still be in a state of semi -barbaric

anarchy.

Our duty there is not to argue with base agitators, but to govern.

Less than 100 ,000 British

rule 315 million Indians.

Marjorie Usher is governess to the children of an army colonel in Chakrata.

Entertaining in this country is very simple.

You just tell the servants how many are coming and they see to everything.

We have nine servants, including the ayah, the head servant, who acts as

to Colonel Sterling, the kitmutgar, who waits at table and looks after the

silver, and the dobi.

A washerman who does our clothes very well indeed.

For some British women, India offers the promise of adventure.

Army wife, Florence Riddle.

The way in which most women in India part their days is too boring for me.

I have never been nervous at natives.

For there is something in our white blood.

which gives us a feeling of superiority over black blood.

I've learnt that when one part of the strange bundle of dirty rags, it is not

dangerous lunatic, but merely a holy Hindu.

Extreme dirt seems to accompany extreme holiness.

Joanna Bazalgette accompanies her husband Jack, an officer in the Indian

Service, on a tour of the Punjab.

She writes an account in her diary.

An early start on the 12th for our 26 -mile journey by river to Chownta.

Some 70 bullock skins have been collected.

Cat naus, they are called.

The animal has been carefully skinned through the hind leg.

so that when the eyes, nose, mouth and other orifices have been patched it

an immense bladder which can be blown up through a leg by manpuff.

For us, they rig two skins side by side with a legless chair on each and a box

between for our feet.

Very comfortable.

And each boat has an auxiliary crew of three or four to paddle, tow and guide

along, and, very important, puff up our bladders every half an hour.

One third of India consists of the princely states, ruled by Maharajas and

Nawabs.

The Indian princes are favoured and flattered by the British wrath.

which considers them useful figureheads for indirect rule and socially

acceptable.

On a tour of India, American tycoon Larry Thor visits one of the wealthiest

states, Bikaner, and films the marriage of the Maharaja Gungasin's granddaughter

to the prince of Udaipur.

This has to be one of the most elaborate spectacles of modern times.

The princely bridegroom arrives on his elephant and approaches a platform where

an official paints the ceremonial cast mark on his forehead.

Then the boy, the center of all attention, is carried off to the temple

solid silver palanquin.

It really is a magnificent affair.

The ultimate social occasion for India's elite is the tiger hunt.

Political power and prestige are traded as Viceroy and Maharajas mingle in the

jungles of northern India and Nepal.

Private Secretary Yvonne Fitzroy.

His Excellency and the Maharaja climb each to their howders.

They are exceptionally comfortable, but nothing can really assuage the pain

caused by the admirable creature the walk The art is to let yourself go and

wobble

In a manual on tiger hunt, the Maharaja Bahadur Ben Ali

describes ring hunting.

I first saw shooting tigers in rings when I was invited by my esteemed friend

Colonel O 'Connor.

Buffalo calves were tied in the jungle as bait.

About 50 elephants were sent out to circle the place where the tiger was

to conceal itself.

Then, when the ring was ready, orders were given for a couple of elephants to

inside and find out where the tiger was.

The tiger which remained in circle for such a long time usually got enraged

charging the elephant that went near it.

In the beginning, it's exciting.

But after a while, the tiger becomes exhausted and lies down.

With two or three rings being made a day, I have seen hundreds of tigers

shot.

In just 10 weeks, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's hunt killed 38 rhino, 27

leopards, 15 bears, and 120 tigers.

While the British enjoy the luxuries of the Raj, most of their Indian subjects

live in dire poverty.

The British Raj impose taxes for everything.

What are these taxes?

Is it to suck out our lifeblood?

They plunder us for our money and make us living corpses.

Look into a railway carriage.

There is breathing space for a gunny sack, but not for a man.

It was in a train like this that my friend Maupilai died of suffocation.

British India is divided into seven provinces with many languages and

Violence between Hindus and Muslims is commonplace.

Nationalists blame the British for a policy of divide and rule.

But one man devotes his life to uniting India.

Mohandas K.

Gandhi.

India has become so poor that she has little power of resisting famine.

Little do town dwellers know how the semi -starred masses of Indians are

sinking to lifelessness.

I have no doubt that England and the town dwellers of India will have to

if there is a God above for this crime against humanity.

By the 1930s, a new generation of British civil servants is beginning to

understand India's plight.

Writing to his mother in England, Assistant Commissioner of the Punjab,

Moon.

The poverty of the people is really astounding.

Not so poor, no doubt, as 40 years ago, but they are conscious of their poverty

nowadays and resented.

I don't know what the government is going to do about Gandhi.

Unless we're very skilful or very lucky, the situation is going to get steadily

worse.

I'm all in favour of granting full dominion status in, say, ten or twelve

But I suppose the government can be trusted to move with that fatal slowness

which constitutes ordered progress.

On the 12th of May, 1937, George VI is crowned King Emperor of 570

million people.

The spirit of empire is reinforced.

Each year, on the anniversary of Queen Victoria's birthday, Britain and her

colonies celebrate Empire Day.

Stand your feet and give three cheers.

Get free meat and get free beers. If you love, join the end.

Schoolchildren are bombarded with imperial propaganda.

In Bolton, they are asked to name their empire heroes.

I think Christopher Columbus was the finest man that ever lived because he

discovered the West Indies where we get spices and fruit and other things.

And if he hadn't proved that the earth was round, the empire would only consist

of England, Scotland and Wales.

I think Gandhi is the most courageous man. He fasts and walks about in India.

Gandhi has his hair shaven off and never lets it grow.

He doesn't think it's right.

He's still alive.

In 1938, as Adolf Hitler threatens to build his own European empire, patriotic

enthusiasm in Britain reaches its zenith.

Glasgow hosts an empire exhibition.

It attracts over 12 .5 million visitors.

I'm having a great time.

There's a huge amusement park here, and yesterday I spent six shillings on

amusements alone.

We did the Dominions.

The Mounties were interesting, but shorter than those in the films.

The teachers took us to see the Giraffe Neck Women.

We already knew a lot about the foreigners from our book, Life and Many

Facing the threat of war with Germany, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visit

their dominion Canada to rally support for Britain.

Thousands of subjects pay tribute to their imperial king and queen.

In Calgary, Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King.

The Indian chiefs were for the most part fine -looking men and in their full

costume very colorful.

I had a first -rate talk with the queen.

She spoke about their courtesy and graceful bearing and their erect ways.

She remarked they were very like the Scotch in some respects.

The timing of the royal visit has not gone unnoticed.

A telegram from Sir Neville Henderson, British ambassador to Berlin.

The visit of their majesties to Canada has been given full publicity in the

German press.

They are at pains to create the impression that all is not well within

empire.

It was believed that the king would very soon travel to India to receive the

imperial crown.

That their majesties have visited Canada instead is a sign that London is trying

to establish the political security of the mother country by coordinating the

Anglo -Saxon element in Canada and the USA.

Canada's loyalty to the crown is secured.

For the second time in 25 years, Britain and her empire will unite to fight a

world war.

The Prime Minister of Australia, the Right Honourable R .G. Menzies.

Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that in

consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain

has declared war upon her, and that as a result, Australia is also at

war.

Troops from all over the British Empire.

mobilized for the Second World War.

Almost a million men from Australia and New Zealand, over 700 ,000 from Canada,

600 ,000 from Africa, and 2 .5 million from India.

The dominions and colonies remain loyal, but there is less of the patriotic

fervor of the First World War.

Government Minister Oscar Skelton.

It is very doubtful if a majority of the people of Canada would have voted for

war. There's a feeling that this is not our war, that the British government,

who blundered into it, should have been allowed to blunder out.

Soldiers from Burma and India are trained for war in the Far East.

19 -year -old Kishan Tiwari.

My father's friend, Colonel Kirroy, insisted he must send two of his five

into the army.

Some members of our family said, why should we join the army and fight on the

British side?

We want independence.

Troops are sent to fight in the Middle East.

A Maori soldier writes a farewell letter to his wife.

Dad and Lingi came to see us off and I felt very lumpy in the throat when they

left.

I'm glad you weren't there.

Mrs. Waka and a whole lot of other wives followed the train.

All they could do was wave.

I felt a funny sinking feeling.

In the horror.

Goodbye.

The wealth of empire is mobilized for war.

Canada supplies vital food and munitions to the mother country.

Gwen Lambton works the night shift in a weapons factory in Ontario.

We punch the time clock at 7 .30 and work a 10 -hour shift, so we don't get

till 6 a .m.

We are issued with cotton overalls which cover our clothes.

You don't even have to wear stockings, although it's cold without.

There is a constant hum of machines, and a loudspeaker near the ceiling trumpets

popular music in March time to keep us awake.

The songs have nothing to do with our work or the war.

To boost morale, Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, broadcasts

the Atlantic.

Canada occupies a unique position in the British Empire.

We have suffered together and we shall conquer together.

The Canadian people share many of the hard tips of the British Home Front.

Rosemary Ridd writes to friends in London.

No doubt you have heard of our rationing here.

We get half a pound of sugar and four ounces of coffee per week.

That's cutting it pretty stiff, but if the folks in Britain can survive and

still smile, why can't we?

Keep the old spirit soaring.

Mom Ridge.

Tonight, I speak to you in Australia and New Zealand.

for whose safety we will strain every nerve, I speak to you all under the

of a heavy and far -reaching military defeat.

It is a British and imperial defeat.

Singapore has fallen.

February 1942.

Britain's empire in the Far East has collapsed with shameful speed.

Australia is exposed.

Minesweepers patrol the coast.

Troops are recalled from the Middle East.

Australians brace themselves for a Japanese invasion.

Their new Prime Minister, John Curtin.

The fall of Singapore is a smashing blow to British prestige.

It opens the battle for Australia.

just as Dunkirk opened the battle for Britain.

No longer may we depend on external support.

Just four days after the fall of Singapore, the

Japanese bombed the northern city of Darwin.

On board HMAS Kerangi, Able seaman Harry Dale writes to his mother.

The chap's bullets are raking along the ship's side.

We're firing at anything our guns can reach.

Wherever you look, there are burning or sinking ships.

Looks like a direct hit on the Peary.

She's sinking, stern first.

Nearly under now.

The town looks to have some big fires.

No one on our ship has been hit.

We certainly have been lucky.

I hope they don't come back.

Just one hour later, the Japanese attack again.

By the end of the day, over 240 Australians have been killed and 350

Australia and New Zealand feel let down by Britain.

They turn to the United States for protection.

GIs are drafted to defend Australia's northern territories.

Prime Minister John Curtin.

Without any inhibitions, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America,

free of our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.

By 1945.

British and Indian troops have retaken Burma.

In June, Australia joins forces with America to expel the Japanese from

Borneo.

Vin McNamara of the 1st Australian Corps describes the fight for one of

Britain's most distant colonies.

As the assault wave swung into line, the support craft moved in.

firing to cover the actual landing.

The troops clung to their rifles and their tin hats.

Some were slightly seasick.

Soon we were ashore in force.

Flap bang into the enemy.

The campaign which developed was a heartbreaking jungle operation.

As the troops advance inland, they liberate hundreds of prisoners of war.

Among them, Indian soldiers.

The men of the 15th Punjab Regiment.

who had tried single -handedly to defend the island when the Japanese attacked.

Most of the Indian POWs are in a pitiful condition.

They are half -starving and many are very ill.

However, the fortitude of these Indians is amazing.

Even now their standard of discipline is high.

Of the 1 ,000 Punjabi soldiers taken prisoner, only 150 survived the Japanese

cats.

It takes three months to secure Borneo. On liberation, Chief Abdul Hamid

delivers a note of thanks.

We the inhabitants.

tender our gratitude towards the Australian forces who have delivered us

the cruel and unjust Japanese.

Our true benefactors, the British government, have come back to us, and we

for everlasting prosperity under the British flag.

August 1945.

Two atomic bombs force the Japanese surrender.

The war... is over.

150 ,000 colonial troops have died in defense of the empire.

While victory is celebrated across the globe, the British people contemplate

future of their empire, changed forever.

by war.

I still feel it's the greatest empire the world has known.

We should all feel grateful for the way it rallied round without any compulsion

to do so.

It seems that British empire building has had some good results.

I don't like empire and what it signifies.

The coloured peoples have been exploited by us as a means of profit.

And by doing so, unemployment and poor living has been created at home.

I don't mind British Commonwealth, but definitely not empire.

We are witnessing now the nemesis of our own imperialism.

It always seemed to me that the empire should be an object of shame rather than

pride.

Maybe we shall give in to India now, but it will be too late to do so with

honour.

Following victory in Europe, Britain's new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, had

arrived in Potsdam to meet with the leaders of the new superpowers, US

Harry Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

A new world order is emerging.

Attlee's Labour government is committed to honouring a pledge to India.

In 1942, in exchange for support in the war,

Britain had promised India her independence.

India's Viceroy, Lord Archibald Wavell.

So there has been a landslide in favour of Labour.

I'm afraid there will be a lot of inexperienced and rather wild

among them.

However, there were very many stupid and tiresome Tories.

I think Labour is likely to be more sympathetic towards India, but I shall

it difficult to persuade them that they must go slow.

At the Viceroy's Lodge in Thimla, Wavell hosts a conference between India's

political rivals.

Mahatma Gandhi of the Hindu -dominated Congress,

and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the increasingly powerful Muslim League.

But after 20 days of intense discussion, Gandhi and Jinnah are no closer to

agreeing on the future of India.

Dear Mr. Gandhi, to achieve the freedom and independence of the peoples of

India, it is essential to accept the division of India as Pakistan and

Hindustan.

Dear Mr.

Jinnah, last evening's talk has left a bad taste in the mouth.

Our talk seemed to run in parallel lines and never touch one another.

Wavell has failed to bring Hindu and Muslim together.

Communal rioting is intensifying.

The British sense they are losing control.

Attlee needs to find a new viceroy to lead India to independence.

I thought very hard and looked all around, and suddenly I had what I now

was an inspiration.

I thought of Mountbatten.

In March 1947, Earl Louis Mountbatten and his wife Edwina arrive in New Delhi.

The great -grandson of Queen Victoria and second cousin to George VI,

Mountbatten brings a regal presence to the drama of India's independence.

As the last Viceroy, he bears responsibility for India's fate.

2nd April 1947.

I have now completed my first week in office.

I should like to be able to paint an encouraging picture of my first

but feel it would be misleading if I did so.

The scene here is one of unrelieved gloom.

At this early stage, I can see little common ground on which to build any

solution for the future of India.

The only conclusion I have been able to come to is that unless I act quickly, I

may well find the real beginnings.

of a civil war on my hands.

By May, attempts to create a unified India have failed.

Gandhi retreats from political life.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, and Jawaharlal Nehru of

Indian National Congress, compete to divide India.

Fearing a total loss of control, Mountbatten brings forward the transfer

power to August.

Two nations will be created by partition, a secular India and a new

India's Muslims, Pakistan.

Communal violence is escalating.

Lady Mountbatten visits a refugee camp in the Punjab.

I talked to a great many of the victims.

One's heart ached for them.

Many families have been completely destroyed, whilst those who had survived

lived in permanent fear of future aggression.

It was such a sad tour.

The devastation is like the blitz at its worst.

The killed, maimed and homeless.

It's tragic.

After 250 years in India, Mountbatten has given the British only 73 days

to leave.

Writing to his wife in England, Indian Civil Service officer

Alan Flack.

7th of August, 1947.

My darling sweetheart.

Yesterday I got a wire from government saying that my services would not be

required after the 15th.

So, it's definite now.

I swim every day and play golf in the evenings.

But I do hope to get a passage out at the end of August.

Jack said the other day that for all he knew the British would be squashed off

on boats and sent home.

An idea for which there's much to be said.

All my love, Alan.

On the eve of independence, Nehru addresses the people of India.

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny,

and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will

awake to life and freedom.

The 15th of August, 1947.

The British Empire in India has come to an end.

The last Viceroy, Louis Mountbatten.

The flag -raising and the salute were done amid scenes of the most fantastic

rejoicing. And as the flag broke, a brilliant rainbow appeared in the sky,

was taken by the crowd as a good omen.

Qasim Muhammad On the 15th of August came freedom.

The freedom to burn, loot and murder.

While Delhi and Karachi were celebrating, Central Punjab was burning.

Between August 1947 and March 1948, four and a half million Hindus and

Sikhs are forced to migrate from Pakistan to India.

Six million Muslims must move in the opposite direction.

Britons and Indians witness the bloodshed.

Shahid Ahmed.

It is a battleground.

People have gone mad.

Trains to Pakistan are being looted and occupants slaughtered.

We all knew that carnage was in the offing.

So did Mountbatten.

The British Empire, which tried to build India over centuries, can never live

down this great tragedy.

Lieutenant Colonel Hubert Boyd Hudson.

The fight from the air was awe -inspiring.

In this chaos, millions of refugees were struggling to get to India or Pakistan.

Thousands of others were doing their best to prevent them, murdering them by

hundred.

But death is nothing.

There are things more terrible than death.

The worst atrocities are in the newly divided Punjab.

Fleeing refugees are terrified that their women will be raped.

We felt totally helpless.

We were completely surrounded.

We had no weapons.

We took the decision that all the women, our own family, must be killed.

First, we killed the young girls with our own hands.

Kerosene was poured over them.

And they were set on fire.

Women and children.

Where could they have gone?

My mother saw my father being killed.

They cut him up into a hundred pieces.

I was trembling.

At my feet there were many bodies.

There were fires all around.

And then they threw the children into the fire.

My mother, she hid me by my father's body.

Ten million people are displaced in the partition of India.

One million are dead.

By the summer of 1948, most of the British have left.

Hubert Boyd Hudson has been in India for 15 years.

India is full of ghosts.

Houses I have lived in.

now inhabited by Indians, remind me of the days which will never come again.

When the Viceroy drove past with a cavalry escort in red coats, I have seen

greatness of the British in India.

But now it is all ended, and we are the last to leave, the few who are trying

to tidy up the mess which the sudden splitting of an old empire has caused.

Britain has lost its greatest imperial possession.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that if India became free, the rest of the empire

follow.

In the next ten years, the fire of India's independence will spread around

globe, from the Middle East to Africa.