“‘Glória de mandar’ e ‘vã cobiça’. A Política Colonial Portuguesa durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial”

Abstract

The Second World War is traditionally associated with the beginning of the “first wave” of the decolonization of the European overseas empires, which would conclude in the 1960s and 1970s. Regardless of the validity of this assertion, the Second World War was, in essence, a war of empires, waged by empires. Some sought the preservation and consolidation of their territorial integrity and their power. Others sought its expansion. In some cases, mainly territorial (Third Reich, Italy, Japan, USSR and British Empire), in others, above all, but not only, a growing economic, political, social, cultural and ideological influence (USA and USSR). In this context, Portugal tried and succeeded, as it had done during the Great War, to guarantee the integrity of its empire and, at the same time, to pursue a strategy capable of strengthening the ties of political and economic interdependence between empire and metropolis. The bumpy course and outcome of the war proved to the civil and military elites of Salazarism that the benefits of owning an empire outweighed the costs, and that the option for the preservation of that empire would bring advantages to a small and poor country located on the periphery of Europe, even if positioned at the centre of the Euro-Afro-Atlantic world undergoing a rising surge, in a context of great geopolitical uncertainties.