The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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sloops on the American station with 4 destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy.
There were the New Zealand
division of the Royal Navy (2 cruisers) with 2 sloops
in New Zealand. And in Australia there was the
Royal Australian Navy consisting
of 4 cruisers (of which 1 was in reserve), 1 flotilla leader, 4
destroyers (2 in
reserve), and 2 sloops.”7

Apart
from all these dispersed squadrons there had to be the battle fleet
prepared for operation in any one or
more ports of the world. One half of this in
the mid-1930s consisted of “5 battleships and 3 battle
cruisers (some of which
were normally under refit and so temporarily out of service), which
were
stationed in the home waters, to cover the areas in which the sea routes converge
on the United
Kingdom.”8 The distribution was partly dictated by the
existence
of two foreign fleets within a few hours steaming of those vital positions. The
other half
of the battle fleet consisting of “7 battleships (with the same proviso
regarding absentees), was
stationed in the Mediterranean, covering the first and
perhaps the most vulnerable stage of imperial
communications, which was also
within striking distance of continental fleets.”9

The
coast of maintaining this massive navy was nonetheless relatively
cheap for many years. However, in the
twentieth century, coats of ships especially
began to escalate and it became more and more expensive to
retain all these fleets
(which we shall see in more detail below).

On
the role of the British Army in protecting the Empire, it could be said
that manpower was mostly provided
by the individual countries of the Empire
such as India. The United Kingdom supplied the machinery, which
was
transported by merchant ships under the protection of the Royal Navy.

By
the end of the nineteenth century, defended essentially by her naval
supremacy, Britain stood at the head
of an empire with interests stretching right
across the surface of the globe. Her commitments were
similarly vast. She had

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