One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

A HISTORY LESSON THE FIRST BATCH DID NOT GET

ONE

in the Far East around 1910. To compensate, land forces in Singapore were increased to

about 3,500 personnel including Volunteers.

Singapore, however, did not figure significantly

in World War I, other than by way of the sideshow of the Sepoy Mutiny.

The end of WWI brought significant changes to the international strategic balance and the

British began to build up the defences of Singapore because of the growing perception that

Japan was becoming a serious threat to Britain in the Asia-Pacific region. Britain and Japan

had signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902 under which there had been considerable

technology transfer from Britain to Japan, particularly in the field of shipbuilding. However,

it was evident that Japan had colonial ambitions and these would be in conflict with Britain’s

Far East interests.

By 1918, the reach of navies—the measure of power projection—had become truly global.

Capital ships, i.e. battleships and battle cruisers, unambiguously represented military

capability and intent. At the end of WWI, Britain’s overseas possessions exceeded that of

all other countries by far, but Britain was financially strapped, with the administration of its

empire and its military forces severely stretched. European nations were still in search of

colonies in Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific. But the imperial club now had an

Asian aspirant, namely Japan, who had not only defeated Russia—a European power—in the

Russo-Japanese War of 1905, but had also engaged German troops in China during WWI.

At the time, Britain and France had been grateful but the Japanese military mindset was now

becoming a serious concern. With the war over, Britain began to reassess its position in the

pecking order of nations. She could only conclude that in terms of power projection, she

would soon be eclipsed by the United States (US), which had helped to change the course

of WWI, and possibly by an increasingly assertive Japan, which was desperate for its own

colonial sources of oil and primary products in East Asia.

Once Britain concluded that its best interests lay in accommodating the US—which seemed

to be on a collision course with Japan in the Pacific—the Anglo-Japanese Alliance became

untenable. From around 1919, the Chiefs of Staff, the Admiralty, the War Office and the

cabinets of the different governments in office in Britain went through many iterations of

strategic analysis on the best way to defend British interests in its far-flung empire—in the

home islands, the Middle East, Africa, India, South East Asia and the Dominions of Canada,

Australia and New Zealand. The key consideration of how to prioritise expenditure over the

period of post-war recovery had been severely exacerbated by the Great Depression of 1929

to 1933. There was also a gradual hardening of positions in the debate on the role of air

power versus naval power: the Admiralty had neither compelling evidence nor the inclination

to concede that air power was the mortal enemy of capital ships, whereas the Royal Air

Force (RAF) was obliged to project a potential rather than actual superiority on the basis of

current technical advancements in a new field. At the time, the merger of air and maritime