Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan [Kindle Edition]

Few events in the twentieth century did as much to shape the world in which we live than the fall of the British Empire. Every corner of the globe bears some stamp of its once-mighty presence, yet only now are we beginning to understand its true impact and legacy. In this book, Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper focus on British rule in southern Asia -India, Burma, Malaya, and Singapore - during the Second World War, showing not just how that conflict accelerated the collapse of their empire in the region but how it set the parameters of the subsequent course it took in history.

The authors chart this progress from events immediately prior to the Japanese invasions of 1941-2, depicting a region at the crossroads of change. On the surface, British rule continued in the routines of rule that had existed for decades, with colonists engaged in their intricate social rituals at the top of a racially stratified society. Yet beneath these placid assumptions, a growing nationalism was beginning to erode the sureties of the British presence. Bayly and Harper's coverage of these groups is one of the many strengths of the book, as they describe the numerous racial groups and the complicated politics of their interactions with impressive breadth and confidence.

Japan sought to exploit this nationalist sentiment by posturing as liberators seeking to create an 'Asia for the Asians.' Yet the success of their conquest was due more to British weakness than the success of any Japanese appeal. Stunned by the rapidity of the Japanese advance, British forces collapsed in a matter of weeks, irreparably damaging the imperial prestige upon which much of their rule rested. Racial attitudes only exacerbated tensions, as white colonials often 'pulled rank' in their eagerness to escape the Japanese onslaught. The memory of this would color relations in the region for years after the war.

Though the Japanese advanced as far as northern Burma, overstretched supply lines and the annual monsoons brought an end to their offensive in the region. Yet with their forces shattered and their resources strained, initially the British could do little to dislodge them. Here the authors turn their attention to the suffering brought about by war, particularly a devastating famine in India, the result of wartime disruption, a devastating cyclone, and British misgovernment. With tensions high and many leaders of the Indian National Congress in prison, the Japanese tried to take advantage of the situation by sponsoring an Indian independence movement under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose. Yet this, like their efforts in Burma and Malaya, soon fell victim to the brutality and abuse of Japanese rule, which alienated the native populations and fueled resistance throughout the region.

With the failure of their U-Go offensive in the spring of 1944, the end of Japanese rule was increasingly apparent to the peoples of the region. Yet even as the British prepared to reassert imperial rule, their former subjects were positioning themselves for independence. Here the authors illustrate both how much the experience of war had changed the region and how blind the British were to these changes. For all of the insincerity of Japanese motivations, the rhetoric of independence and the creation of local military forces had fanned nationalist hopes and accelerated what ultimately became an irreversible end to the British Empire in Asia.

Bayly and Harper have provided an excellent history of the war in southeastern Asia and its role in decolonization. The breadth of their coverage is impressive, particularly in their examination of Asian perspectives towards both British and Japanese rule - something all too often absent in histories of the conflict. Though the narrative often suffers from stilted writing, the insightful analysis the authors offer more than compensates for the lack of polish in the prose. In fact, the abrupt termination of their account with the end of the fighting left me hoping for a follow-up volume that tracks these developments to their eventual conclusion - independence and the creation of a new Asia.

I had assumed this book was going to be a straightforward military history of Britain vs. Japan during the Second World War. Well, not quite. Instead, it's a history of the years 1941-1945, from the point of view of the "natives" of Britain's Asian colonies - India, Burma, the Malay states and Singapore. It's certainly an unusual perspective on the War. I found it fascinating and once I'd started it, couldn't put it down.

I do have one quibble, which is that while the book was a real page-turner, I wasn't 100% convinced by the authors' scholarship. They occasionally lapse into purple prose more reminiscent of pulp fiction than history books, and I sometimes felt they might be exaggerating for dramatic effect.

For example, describing Japanese trade in South-East Asia prior to the War:

"There was underway no less than a creeping Japanese colonisation of Southeast Asia. It is striking in the years before 1941 how much of the region's trade had fallen, almost by stealth, to the Japanese. After the First World War, business strategists toured the region in 'sightseeing' parties . . . (continues in this vein for three pages) . . . Yet the synergy between patriotism and trade, the often spontaneous information-gathering by Japanese individuals and societies, made any underlying conspiracy hard to expose."

Well, quite. Three pages of suggestions that Japanese trade was part of a conspiracy directed from Tokyo, but no factual support backed up by references. I felt similarly frustrated at other points in the book.

Another thing I found frustrating was that the book covered so much, so many different aspects, that I felt I was just skimming the surface of events (about which I'd known nothing before) and I wished the book was three times as long! The authors' don't include a "Further Reading" list, but nevertheless I think I will read more about some of the events in this book. And I will definitely put the authors' next book, 'Forgotten Wars', on my 'to-read' list.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the Second World War, the British or Japanese Empires, or Asian history.

I am afraid that I do not agree with previous glowing reviews of this book. It is certainly magisterial in scope and the authors are to be congratulated on dealing so comprehensively with a subject that is rarely considered holistically. But the book is so full of schoolboy errors and some more serious flaws that the entire approach of the book is undermined and, in my view, fatally damaged. Part of the problem is the scope of the book: it is so wide that issues are dealt with superficially. This would not be so bad if it were not for the grievous errors of fact - and some of judgement - that litter the book. As I stumbled across mistakes with regular monotony on the subject that I knew most about - the military history of the region - I began to wonder how many other areas were also affected by like error, but which, not being a subject matter expert, I had no way to tell. How did such eminent academics make such mistakes? I suspect that they worked too fast, were too influenced by ill-informed undergraduate chatter and did not spend enough time looking at secondary sources to validate what they found in the primary sources. The basic problem is that the military story is badly conceived, and consequently poorly (and often wrongly) told. Occasionally, their accounts of the fighting are absurd. These men do not profess to be military historians, but the mistakes in the telling of the story of the war undermine, in my view, their efforts elsewhere.

To give just a few examples, I note that twice they assert that the Chindits included Indian troops (no) and on one occasion US `Commandos' (no). They assert that the 1943 Chindits lived off the land (no) and that those in 1944 were dropped by glider (again, no). But these are minor errors compared to their understanding of the climatic battles of Imphal-Kohima. At Imphal they imagine `a tennis club, later to be the scene of one of the bloodiest battles in South Asian history... (no and no). Of Arakan, they imagine there to have been `fierce battles... along tunnelled railway lines which were the only way down into Burma...' I am afraid that the errors of history and geography evidenced here are profound. More worryingly perhaps, they display no understanding of who and what the 14th Army was, namely, a polyglot mix of British, Indian, Gurkha, African and many other under British command.

It strikes me that the authors somehow want to undermine the British role in the defeat of the Japanese, whilst exaggerating its failures, such as Irwin's disastrous first Arakan campaign. But their assertions are based on a poor understanding of the facts. They tell us, for instance, that in Assam (presumably they are referring to Kohima and Imphal) that it `was Punjabis and Gurkhas, in particular the men of the 5th, 17th and 23rd Indian Divisions, who came to the rescue of the embattled garrisons.' Do they not realise that a full third of each `Indian' Division was British, as was all the artillery and most of the tanks and everything else? It is entirely wrong to consider that the Indian Army in 1944 and 1945 was anything other than a British army that employed Indian volunteers of every tribe and race on the sub-continent who fought willingly for the Raj. They also ignore the British Divisions - like the 2nd Division who relieved Kohima - which fought with distinction in India and Burma. I began to wonder whether there was a dubious political agenda at play when I read that `After the battles of April 1944... the British army began to use Indian troops to stiffen the morale of the British...' The assertion is preposterous.

My final gripe is their swipe at Mountbatten. The authors delight in making fun of the Supremo because of the `unlikely sounding and aborted invasion schemes - Zipper, Dracula and so on...' Aborted? Zipper was the invasion of Malaya, and went ahead as planned. Dracula was the seaborne assault on Rangoon in May 1945 and went ahead successfully on Slim's request, before Slim's armoured thrust reached the city. Operation Dracula was well conceived and planned, and the ships of the fleet were at sea long before a lone RAF pilot saw the words `Exdigitate' on the roof of Rangoon jail. Mountbatten had his faults, but he was an important element in eventual Allied success in south-east Asia.

All in all this was a disappointing book. My greatest concern is that it is presented as the result of `...deep archival research and even-handed scholarly synthesis.' I am afraid that, in my area of expertise, I cannot agree, and regret that such an important work carries such profound errors of fact and warped judgement.