Danny and MPN
Fascinating insight into your
wartime ablutions! The latrine story has a
ring of truth (no rude pun intended). I recall that in my youth I had heard about one's ability to set light to such gases, at the moment of emission, with a lighter. Fool that I was, I tried it and the consequent explosive flare rewarded me with a good burn to both my hand and to my
ring of truth.
Yes, there were, no doubt, some benefits of
imperialism to a colonised country... and Britain was apparently one of the better masters to have. But on balance, we shouldn't lull ourselves into thinking that colonisation was a good thing. At its heart was trade, and trade that was at the expense of the country concerned. An example in India was the cotton trade, where cotton was grown in India, shipped to the mills of northern England, then shipped back again as cloth to sell to the Indian population. The quality of the manufactured product was vastly better than 'home spun' cloth produced by Indian villagers, so that particular local industry collapsed.
So the Empire not only fed British industry with affordable raw materials, it also provided markets to sell to... markets that were 'protected' from the goods of foreign competitors. Most of the grand buildings in British cities, and the fine country houses, now in the hands of the National Trust, were, of course, financed by the profits of Empire. As you rightly observe, colonial rule tended to be with a rod of iron. Vast countries were being controlled by tiny cadres of Brits, so the illusion of superiority, and the immediate suppression of any signs of insurrection was vital.
I've mentioned
84 Sqdn a lot in this Thread. In fact, between the world wars, they were put to use in Iraq, as an 'enforcer and peace-keeper' of the British imperial government. Their work included the following. The village of a head man who failed to pay his taxes, would be visited by an aircraft which would drop leaflets warning that the village would be destroyed by bombing if he failed to cough-up by a designated date. If that didn't deliver the money, a squadron of Wapitis were sent to the village and more leaflets would be dropped telling the villagers to evacuate prior to the commencement of the air strike. They were given 30 minutes, the aircraft circling overhead as the villagers drove their herds out and moved their prized possessions. The bombing would then commence, the villagers watching from several hundred metres away. HE destroyed the roofs and incendiaries set light to the timbers. (I should add that other miscreants who received similar treatment included Shiek Mahmoud who wanted Kurdistan for the Kurds (sound familiar?) and also any village that provided food to some nasty outlaws called the KFB.)
Should you doubt the accuracy of this information, I've taken it from the book 'Flying Fever' by AVM S F Vincent, who flew on such raids and later became 84 Sqdn CO. (The same Vincent who commanded 221 Group in the Burma campaign, with such success). He personally flew on fifty such raids and he did find them distasteful. One can easily see that the return of a British presence to Iraq in the recent war and occupation, stirred old memories and the conduct of our ancestors exacerbated anti-British sentiments.