Great Britain, 1918–1939

Although Britain won the First World War, it was economically weakened: it owed money to the USA and its old industries (coal, textiles) stagnated. Miners opposed wage cuts and a general strike took place in May 1926. In politics, the two traditional parties – Conservatives and Liberals – were challenged in the 1920s by Labour, which became the second major force and formed its first government in January 1924. In the empire, the treaty of December 1921 gave most of Ireland dominion status, Egypt’s independence was declared in 1922 (Britain kept some powers), and the Statute of Westminster (1931) confirmed the equality of the dominions in internal and external affairs, laying the basis of the British Commonwealth. In the 1930s Neville Chamberlain’s government followed a policy of appeasement towards Germany: the Munich Agreement of 1938 handed the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Germany, but when Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Britain declared war on it on 3 September.