Nationalist Disillusionment with Imperialism Worldwide

The Allied powers, to rally the colonies to their side during the war, had promised them an era of democracy and self- determination after the war. During the war, both sides to the war had launched vicious propaganda to malign each other and expose each other’s uncivilised colonial record. But soon it became clear from the Paris Peace Conference and other peace treaties that the imperialist powers had no intention of loosening their hold over the colonies; in fact they went on to divide the colonies of the vanquished powers among themselves. All this served to further erode the myth of the cultural and military superiority of the whites. As a result, the post-war period saw a resurgence of militant nationalist activity throughout Asia and Africa—in Turkey, Egypt, Ireland, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines, Indonesia, Indo-China, China and Korea.