Whereas the First World War witnessed the disappearance of no fewer than four great empires - German, Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian - Britain emerged from the conflict with greatly extended imperial possessions that stretched unbroken from the Suez Canal to Singapore and from Cairo to the Cape.

However, the high noon of the British empire in 1918 was also the beginning of the end. In the post-war world, controlling and placating the various strands of empire became an increasingly difficult task. The expectations of Britain's colonial subjects had been raised during the war, which the empire and the Dominions had helped to fund. India, for example, paid £146 million towards the war effort. Imports of raw materials from the colonies had also been crucial to the Allied victory.

The white-run Dominions of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa contributed significantly to the British empire's war effort. On the Western Front and at Gallipoli, their soldiers fought and died in large numbers. From December 1916 onwards, Dominion ministers participated in meetings of Lloyd George's Imperial War Cabinet.

The Dominions each insisted on separate representation at the Paris peace conference in 1919, where new territory - in the guise of mandates awarded by the League of Nations - was awarded to Australia (German New Guinea ), New Zealand (German Samoa ) and South Africa (German South-West Africa). The First World War thus marked an important staging post in their gradual progress towards full autonomy within the 'commonwealth' of the British empire.

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British promises of greater self-government, embodied in the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919, were contradicted by the fact that ultimate power still lay in the hands of the viceroy and the India Office in London. Anti-British sentiments were hardened by the events of April 1919, when British troops under General Dyer shot dead 379 people at a political meeting in the town of Amritsar. The Amritsar massacre encouraged the first of the civil disobedience campaigns organised by Mahatma Gandhi.

The British position in India thus began to unravel slowly after the First World War. However, it would take until after the Second World War for the tortuous process to be completed.

As most of Africa was under European control in 1914, the continent was quickly sucked into the First World War. Fearful of the political implications of pitting black troops against white, Britain refused to deploy a large African army for service in Europe, though various groups such as the 20,000-strong South African Native Labour Contingent served as non-combatants behind the lines on the Western Front. African troops were used almost exclusively in the war in Africa.

Yet the rewards for such loyal service at the end of the war were minimal. The Paris peace conference concentrated on dividing up the spoils of Germany's African empire among the victorious Allies, who showed little interest in extending the principles of self-determination to black Africans.

With the exception of white-ruled South Africa, of the British-occupied territories in post-war Africa only Egypt made much progress in this direction. However, the 'independence' that it gained in 1922 was nominal, allowing Britain to maintain control of the Suez Canal. Elsewhere - in Kenya, for example - white settlers continued to enjoy political and land privileges that were denied to the black population. This situation did not change greatly until after the Second World War.

Soldiers from the Caribbean saw service in several of the main theatres of war. The long-standing West India Regiment fought in Cameroon and East Africa, while the newly formed British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) saw service in France and the Middle East.

In December 1918 soldiers of the BWIR stationed at Taranto in Italy mutinied in protest at being forced to carry out manual labour and at racial discrimination in pay and promotions. The Caribbean League, a nationalist body that was to campaign for independence from Britain, was formed in the aftermath of the mutiny. Nevertheless, as in Africa, this goal was not achieved until after the Second World War.

In the post-war Middle East, with Russia and Turkey now largely removed from the equation, a new British empire seemed to be taking shape. Britain acquired as mandates two valuable territories: oil-rich Iraq (formerly the Ottoman district of Mesopotamia) and Palestine. It also established a protectorate in Persia (Iran) and occupied Afghanistan.

However, British dominance in the region was short-lived. British forces quickly withdrew from Persia and Afghanistan. Revolts took place in Iraq, where RAF air squadrons were eventually deployed to quell the unrest in 1922, and in Palestine, where great tensions existed between the Arab and Jewish populations.

In the Middle East, as elsewhere, the legacy of the First World War was mixed. The prestige of an expanded imperial portfolio could not mask its costs and dangers.