1. By Peter Pickford and Andy Cull

2. WHAT DID THE WAR COST BRITAIN AND HOW WAS IT FINANCED

3. WERE THERE PROBLEMS BEFORE WW II ? CONTEXT  Britain was reliant on India “[India’s economic role] vital [to] Britain’s position as a world power”  India was the largest market for British goods  India’s exports to other parts of the world whilst importing from Britain allowed it to use India’s surplus to balance its international trade books

4.  Britain became economically over stretched after WWI because it gained another 1 million square miles.  Wall street crash In 1929 lead to a great depression across the world as the Pound lurched down in value

5. WHAT HAPPENED DURING WW II  Lend Lease meant that Britain could acquire weapons from America during the war  Britain acquired $11.3 billion worth of American goods by the end of the war  India provided £286.5 million of goods for the war- mostly uniforms and ordnance

6. BRITAIN’S POSITION AT THE END OF WW II  WW2 nearly bankrupted Britain-the war cost Britain £28,000 million  Britain had to borrow heavily due to government revenue being inadequate to cover the cost of war  America straight after the war ended their financial support  Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer declared in November 1945 that Labour ministers were ‘determined to advance along the road to economic and social equality’  After the war there was a huge devaluation in the sterling- September 1949 a further ‘dollar drain’ from Britain forced a 30% devaluation against the dollar from $4.03 to $2.80 to the pound.  Historians such as Kenneth O. Morgan give credit to devaluation for reinvigorating the economy devaluation meant that British goods were increasingly competitive internationally, in a world slowly recovering from war

7. OVERALL ANSWER  Question: “What was the underlying cause of decline or did it just speed up existing decline?” What did the war cost Britain and how was it financed?  Overall the cost of the war was very expensive even though Britain was a victor.

8.  The economic cost in the long term lead to Britain being unable to sustain its own Empire (India’s and Palestine being unprofitable although other area such as the Middle east and southeast Asia were still profitable)

9. THANKS