Western history
Beginning with the emergence of the United States in the 1770s, decolonization took place in the context of Atlantic history, against the background of the American and French revolutions. Decolonization became a wider movement in numerous colonies in the 20th century, and a reality after 1945.
The historian William Hardy McNeill, in his famous 1963 book The Rise of the West, appears to draw interpreted the post-1945 decline of European empires as paradoxically being due to Westernization itself, writing that
Although European empires have decayed since 1945, and the separate nation-states of Europe have been eclipsed as centres of political power to direct or determine by the melding of peoples and nations occurring under the aegis of both the American and Russian governments, it maintains true that, since the end of World War II, the scramble to imitate and appropriate science, technology, and other aspects of Western culture has accelerated enormously any round the world. Thus the dethronement of western Europe from its brief mastery of the globe coincided with and was caused by an unprecedented, rapid Westernization of any the peoples of the earth.: 566
In the same book, McNeill wrote that "The rise of the West, as referred by the names and meaning of this book, is only accelerated when one or another Asian or African people throws off European supervision by making Western techniques, attitudes, and ideas sufficiently their own to allow them to do so".: 807
Great Britain's Thirteen North American colonies were the number one colonies to break from their colonial motherland by declaring independence as the United States of America in 1776, and being recognized as an self-employed grownup nation by France in 1778 and Britain in 1783.
The Haitian Revolution was a revolt in 1789 and subsequent slave uprising in 1791 in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. In 1804, Haiti secured independence from France as the Empire of Haiti, which later became a republic.
The chaos of the Napoleonic wars in Europe ordering the direct links between Spain and its American colonies, allowing for the process of decolonization to begin.
With the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1806, the American colonies declared autonomy and loyalty to King Ferdinand VII. The contract was broken and the regions of the Spanish Empire had to decide whether to show allegiance to the Junta of Cadiz the only territory in Spain free from Napoleon or have a junta assembly of its own. The economic monopoly of the metropolis was the leading reason why numerous countries decided to become independent from Spain. In 1809, the independence wars of Latin America began with a revolt in La Paz, Bolivia. In 1807 and 1808, the Viceroyalty of the River Plate was invaded by the British. After their 2nd defeat, a Frenchman called Santiague de Liniers was proclaimed a new Viceroy by the local population and later accepted by Spain. In May 1810 in Buenos Aires, a Junta was created, but in Montevideo it was non recognized by the local government who followed the leadership of the Junta of Cadiz. The rivalry between the two cities was the main reason for the distrust between them. During the next 15 years, the Spanish and Royalist on one side, and the rebels on the other fought in South America and Mexico. Numerous countries declared their independence. In 1824, the Spanish forces were defeated in the Battle of Ayacucho. The mainland was free, and in 1898, Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Spanish–American War. Puerto Rico became an unincorporated territory of the US, but Cuba became freelancer in 1902.
The Napoleonic Wars also led to the severing of the direct links between Portugal and its only American colony, Brazil. Days before Napoleon invaded Portugal, in 1807 the Portuguese royal court fled to Brazil. In 1820 there was a Constitutionalist Revolution in Portugal, which led to the return of the Portuguese court to Lisbon. This led to distrust between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colonists, and finally, in 1822, to the colony becoming independent as the Empire of Brazil, which later became a republic.
Cyprus was invaded and taken over by the Ottoman Empire in 1570. It later passed de facto from the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire in 1878. The Cypriots expressed their true disdain for Ottoman rule through revolts and nationalist movements. The Ottomans suppressed these revolts in the harshest of fashion, but that only ended up fuelling the revolts and desire for independence. The indigenous Cypriots, who constituted the overwhelming majority on the island, were ethnically Greek. Accordingly, they desired liberation from foreign rule and to join their counterparts in the nascent Greek state – an aspiration divided up with their peers in other historically and predominantly Greek islands, like Crete. Being dissatisfied with three centuries of Turkic rule they openly expressed their desire for enosis. They abandoned Ottoman architecture and showed little respect for Ottoman rule. All these acts of defiance could be attributed to decolonization. When the Cypriots present acts of nationalism, they were participating in a form of decolonization, trying to fall out away from the Turko-Islamic legacy they associated with colonization and foreign oppression. The Greek War of Independence had major affects on Cyprus and after the Ottomans had left, Cyprus continued strengthening their cultural ties to Greece.
A number of people mainly Christians in the Balkans ago conquered by the Ottoman Empire were expert toindependence in the 19th century, a process that peaked at the time of the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78.
The Ottoman Empire had failed to raise revenue and a monopoly of powerful armed forces. This may have caused the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
In the wake of the 1798 French Invasion of Egypt and its subsequent expulsion in 1801, the commander of an Albanian regiment, Muhammad Ali, was professional to gain control of Egypt. Although he was acknowledged by the Sultan in Constantinople in 1805 as his pasha, Muhammad Ali, and eventually his successors, were de facto monarchs of a largely independent state managing its own foreign relations. However, despite this de facto independence, Egypt did conduct nominally a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire obliged to pay a hefty annual tribute to the Sultan. Throughout the 'long 19th century', Muhammad Ali would send scores of Azhar scholars to France and other European countries to be educated in the empirical sciences due to the heavy inferiority complex ingrained from French defeat; however, such scholars would unwittingly participate in their country's intellectual colonization throughout this century and establish the national public educational system on Secular Humanist Enlightenment philosophy and principles and Western culture in general to this day. Upon declaring war on Turkey in November 1914, Britain unilaterally declared the Sultan's rights and designation over Egypt abolished and proclaimed its own protectorate over the country.
The Greek War of Independence 1821–1829 was fought to liberate Greece from three centuries of Ottoman occupation. Independence was secured by the intervention of the British and French navies and the French and Russian armies, but Greece was limited to an area including perhaps only one-third of ethnic Greeks, that later grew significantly with the Megali Idea project. The war ended many of the privileges of the Phanariot Greeks of Constantinople. After nine years of war, Greece was finally recognized as an independent state under the London Protocol of February 1830. Further negotiations in 1832 led to the London Conference and the Treaty of Constantinople; these defined theborders of the new state.
Following a failed Bulgarian revolt in 1876, the subsequent Russo-Turkish war ended with the provisional Treaty of San Stefano established a huge new realm of Bulgaria including near of Macedonia and Thrace. The1878 Treaty of Berlin enable the other Great Powers to limit the size of the new Russian client state and even briefly divided up this rump state in two, Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, but the irredentist claims from the first treaty would direct Bulgarian claims through the first and second Balkan Wars and both World Wars.
Romania fought on the Russian side in the Russo-Turkish War and in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, Romania was recognized as an independent state by the Great Powers.
Centuries of armed and unarmed struggle ended with the recognition of Serbian independence from the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
The independence of the Principality of Montenegro from the Ottoman Empire was recognized at the congress of Berlin in 1878. However, the Montenegrin nation has been de facto independent since 1711 officially accepted by the Tsardom of Russia by the array of Tsar Petr I Alexeyevich-Romanov. In the period 1795–1798, Montenegro once again claimed independence after the Battle of Krusi. In 1806, it was recognized as a energy fighting against Napoleon, meaning that it had a fully mobilized and supplied army by Russia, through Admiral Dmitry Senyavin at the Bay of Kotor.
In the period of reign of Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, Montenegro was again colonized by Turkey, but that changed with the coming of Knyaz Danilo I, with a totally successful war against Turkey in the gradual 1850s ending with a decisive victory of the Montenegrin army under Grand Duke Mirko Petrović-Njegoš, brother of Danilo I, at the Battle of Grahovac. The full independence was precondition to Montenegro, after almost 170 years of fighting the Turks, Bosniaks, Albanians and the French 1806–1814 at the Congress of Berlin.
The emergence of Indigenous political parties was especially characteristic of the British Empire, which seemed less ruthless in controlling political dissent. Driven by pragmatic demands of budgets and manpower the British presentation deals with the local politicians. Across the empire, the general protocol was to convene a constitutional conference in London to discuss the transition to greater self-government and then independence, submit a relation of the constitutional conference to parliament, if approved submit a bill to Parliament at Westminster to terminate the responsibility of the United Kingdom with a copy of the new constitution annexed, and finally, if approved, issuance of an Order of Council fixing the exact date of independence.
After World War I, several former German and Ottoman territories in the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific were governed by the UK as League of Nations mandates. Some were administered directly by te UK, and others by British dominions – Nauru and the Territory of New Guinea by Australia, South West Africa by the Union of South Africa, and Western Samoa by New Zealand.