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Decolonization
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==== Planning for decolonization ==== =====U.S. and Philippines===== In the United States, the two major parties were divided on the acquisition of the Philippines, which became a major campaign issue in 1900. The Republicans, who favored permanent acquisition, won the election, but after a decade or so, Republicans turned their attention to the Caribbean, focusing on building the [[Panama Canal]]. President [[Woodrow Wilson]], a Democrat in office from 1913 to 1921, ignored the Philippines, and focused his attention on Mexico and Caribbean nations. By the 1920s, the peaceful efforts by the Filipino leadership to pursue independence proved convincing. When the Democrats returned to power in 1933, they worked with the Filipinos to plan a smooth transition to independence. It was scheduled for 1946 by [[Tydings–McDuffie Act]] of 1934. In 1935, the Philippines transitioned out of territorial status, controlled by an appointed governor, to the semi-independent status of the [[Commonwealth of the Philippines]]. Its constitutional convention wrote a new constitution, which was approved by Washington and went into effect, with an elected governor [[Manuel L. Quezon]] and legislature. Foreign Affairs remained under American control. The Philippines built up a new army, under general [[Douglas MacArthur]], who took leave from his U.S. Army position to take command of the new army reporting to Quezon. The Japanese occupation 1942 to 1945 disrupted but did not delay the transition. It took place on schedule in 1946 as [[Manuel Roxas]] took office as president.<ref>H. W. Brands, ''Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines'' (1992) pp. 138–60. [https://archive.org/details/boundtoempireuni00bran online free]</ref> =====Portugal===== [[File:Sempreatentos...aoperigo!.jpg|thumb|right|210px|[[Portuguese Army]] special ''[[caçadores]]'' advancing in the African jungle in the early 1960s, during the [[Angolan War of Independence]]]] As a result of its pioneering [[Portuguese discoveries|discoveries]], [[Portugal]] had a large and particularly long-lasting colonial empire which had begun in 1415 with the [[conquest of Ceuta]] and ended only in 1999 with the handover of [[Portuguese Macau]] to China. In 1822, Portugal [[Independence of Brazil|lost control of Brazil]], its largest colony. From 1933 to 1974, [[Estado Novo (Portugal)|Portugal was an authoritarian state]] (ruled by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]). The regime was fiercely determined to maintain the country's colonial possessions at all costs and to aggressively suppress any insurgencies. In 1961, [[Annexation of Goa|India annexed Goa]] and by the same year nationalist forces had begun organizing in Portugal. Revolts (preceding the [[Portuguese Colonial War]]) spread to [[Portuguese Angola|Angola]], [[Portuguese Guinea|Guinea Bissau]] and [[Portuguese Mozambique|Mozambique]].<ref>John P. Cann, ''Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War 1961–74'' Solihull, UK (Helion Studies in Military History, No. 12), 2012.</ref> [[Lisbon]] escalated its effort in the war: for instance, it increased the number of natives in the colonial army and built strategic hamlets. Portugal sent another 300,000 European settlers into Angola and Mozambique before 1974. That year, [[Carnation Revolution|a left-wing revolution]] inside Portugal overthrew the existing regime and encouraged pro-Soviet elements to attempt to seize control in the colonies. The result was a very long and extremely difficult multi-party [[Angolan Civil War|Civil War in Angola]], and lesser insurrections in Mozambique.<ref>Norrie MacQueen, ''The Decolonisation of Portuguese Africa: Metropolitan Revolution and the Dissolution of Empire''</ref> ===== Belgium ===== Belgium's empire began with the annexation of the Congo in 1908 in response to international pressure to bring an end to the [[Atrocities in the Congo Free State|terrible atrocities]] that had taken place under [[King Leopold II of Belgium|King Leopold]]'s privately run [[Congo Free State]]. It added [[Ruanda-Urundi|Rwanda and Burundi]] as League of Nations mandates from the former German Empire in 1919. The colonies remained independent during the war, while Belgium was occupied by the Germans. There was no serious planning for independence, and exceedingly little training or education provided. The [[Belgian Congo]] was especially rich, and many Belgian businessmen lobbied hard to maintain control. Local revolts grew in power and finally, the Belgian king suddenly announced in 1959 that independence was on the agenda – and it was hurriedly arranged in 1960, for country bitterly and deeply divided on social and economic grounds.<ref>Henri Grimal, ''Decolonisation: The British, French, Dutch and Belgian Empires, 1919–63'' (1978).</ref> ===== Netherlands ===== [[File:Een groep gevangenen zit op de grond, bewaakt door soldaten voorbeeld van goe…, Bestanddeelnr 15865.jpg|thumb|210px|Dutch soldiers in the East Indies during the [[Indonesian National Revolution]], 1946]] The Netherlands had spent centuries building up its empire. By 1940 it consisted mostly of the [[Dutch East Indies]], corresponding to what is now Indonesia. Its massive oil reserves provided about 14 percent of the Dutch national product and supported a large population of ethnic Dutch government officials and businessmen in [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies|Batavia]] (now Jakarta) and other major cities. The Netherlands was overrun and almost starved to death [[Reichskommissariat Niederlande|by the Nazis]] during the war, and Japan sank the Dutch fleet in seizing the East Indies. In 1945 the Netherlands could not regain these islands on its own; [[Battle of Surabaya|it did so by depending on British military help]] and [[Marshall Plan|American financial grants]]. By the time Dutch soldiers returned, an independent government under [[Sukarno]] was in power, originally set up by the [[Empire of Japan]]. The Dutch both abroad and at home generally agreed that Dutch power depended on an expensive war to regain the islands. Compromises were negotiated, but were trusted by neither side. When the [[Madiun Affair|Indonesian Republic successfully suppressed]] a large-scale communist revolt, the United States realized that it needed the nationalist government as an ally in the Cold War. Dutch possession was an obstacle to American Cold War goals, so Washington forced the Dutch to grant full independence. A few years later, Sukarno nationalized all [[Dutch East Indies]] properties and expelled all [[Indo people|ethnic Dutch]]—over 300,000—as well as several hundred thousand ethnic Indonesians who supported the Dutch cause. In the aftermath, the Netherlands prospered greatly in the 1950s and 1960s but nevertheless public opinion was bitterly hostile to the United States for betrayal. The Dutch government eventually gave up on claims to Indonesian sovereignty in 1949, after American pressure.<ref>{{cite book|author=Frances Gouda|title=American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920–1949|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zh1VtsxRlRAC&pg=PA36|year=2002|publisher=Amsterdam UP|page=36|isbn=978-90-5356-479-0}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 259796|title = The Netherlands after the Loss of Empire|journal = Journal of Contemporary History|volume = 4|issue = 1|pages = 127–139|last1 = Baudet|first1 = Henri|year = 1969|doi = 10.1177/002200946900400109|s2cid = 159531822}}</ref> The Netherlands also had one other major colony, Dutch Guiana in [[South America]], which became independent as [[Suriname]] in 1975.
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