On 31 March 1914, Harrods' only overseas branch opened to the public on Buenos Aires's elegant Florida Street. The luxurious store epitomized the extent of British influence in Argentina, as one prominent newspaper editorial proclaimed: “The English community in particular has reason to feel proud of this magnificent establishment conceived by English brains, financed by English capital.” This “Mecca of society,” as the store was branded, was enjoyed both by the almost thirty thousand British subjects living in the republic and by wealthy Argentines, yet it was not the only British icon in the capital.Footnote 1 Only ten minutes away from Harrods was an imposing replica of Big Ben, known as Torre de los Ingleses. It had been commissioned by the British residents of Argentina as a gift to the nation on the centennial of the May Revolution, which had paved the way for Argentina's eventual independence from Spain in 1816. Erected at the heart of Plaza Británica in the stylish barrio Retiro, the clock tower was just steps away from yet another British symbol that would be inaugurated the following year: the majestic Central Argentine Railway terminus. Other smaller British firms and establishments also proliferated around Buenos Aires, as we can glean from the advertisements routinely displayed in the two main English-language newspapers of the city—the Buenos Aires Herald and the Standard—for shops and businesses that projected a “British” commercial image. For example, on 2 April 1914, the pages of the Standard enticed readers to taste “Pickwick Marmalade” and “the ‘Tiffin’ Pickles” at the “Victoria Tea Rooms,” and enjoy “Luncheons and Teas” at “Le Five O'Clock” while purchasing “artistic Afternoon Tea sets” at “Mappin & Webb” or developing photographs at “Imperial.”Footnote 2
Sixty-eight years later, we find a different scene entirely. In order to celebrate the “recovery of the Malvinas” on 2 April 1982, Harrods (Buenos Aires) was festooned with Argentine flags, and placed advertisements in all major national dailies with the slogan “La gran tienda argentina adhiere al Gran Momento Nacional” (“The great Argentine store supports the Great National Moment”). That such a symbol of Britishness was now presented as “la gran tienda argentina” signifies a conscious shedding of the British reputation that had hitherto been an asset to the store.Footnote 3 Businesses and organizations with even the slightest links to Britain went out of their way to publicly declare their support for the Argentine cause. Thus the Asociación de Cultura Británica emphasized its Argentine origins, financing, and character, as did the refrigerator manufacturers McLean, declaring, “we manufacture cold, but we are boiling with rage about our Malvinas.”Footnote 4 Like Harrods, by saying “our Malvinas,” McLean was invoking the rhetoric of group solidarity, emphasizing its local roots in order to dispel any doubts about its loyalties among Argentine customers. Meanwhile, a prominent pharmacy in downtown Buenos Aires, La Franco Inglesa, chose to drop the word “Inglesa” from its name after the sinking of the Belgrano in early May 1982.Footnote 5
To some extent, this change in rhetoric could be seen as a tactical adjustment at a time of uncertainty and growing anti-British feelings in Argentina. In fact, several urban landmarks with British connections were “nationalized”: Plaza Británica became Plaza Fuerza Aérea, while its clock tower was rechristened Torre Monumental. Yet these stories also typify the changes that the Anglo-Argentine community at large underwent as a result of the Falklands War, as it found itself wedged between what had become two irreconcilable identities. While several Anglo-Argentines publicly expressed their support for Argentina, this stance was by no means unanimous. Rather, identity and loyalty became the subjects of fierce debates within the community. And while the war prompted many Anglo-Argentines to support Argentina's cause, it also inspired them to reach out to the Falkland Islanders—on the basis of a shared Britishness—in order to assuage their fears. All of these factors illustrate the widening breach within the Anglo-Argentine community and the deepening fissures between them and the “British world” that was integral to their self-definition.
This article explores the wider implications of the Falklands War in a “British world” context by analyzing the Anglo-Argentine community's reactions to the conflict.Footnote 6 Most works on the Falklands conflict tend to treat the Anglo-Argentine angle of the story as a bizarre sideshow with little bearing on the political stakes of the confrontation.Footnote 7 Yet while the role of Argentina's British community in the military encounter was almost negligible, their story acquires new importance when viewed through a transnational lens. Recent works on British history from such perspectives have introduced useful conceptual frameworks such as “Greater Britain” (a term that originated in the nineteenth century) or the more recent term, “British world.”Footnote 8 These concepts refer to the idea of an expansive Britishness, a global community that encompasses the effect of more than a century of imperial endeavor and unites peoples from the remotest corners of the earth in the belief that they shared a common identity, culture, and material interests.
The serial crises of belonging that erupted among multiple self-styled “British” communities around the globe in the era of decolonization are now increasingly studied as part of a wider rupture in the capacity of Britishness to resonate globally at empire's end.Footnote 9 Tamson Pietsch proposes the study of “British world spaces,” as a way of overcoming a lack of clearly defined temporal and spatial boundaries in British world scholarship. She describes these spaces as “multiple and intersecting” yet also “limited” and unequal. These different spaces are based on material networks and exchanges, on “the ideational tools of an imagined ‘global Britishness’” and on the physical places where British societies are enacted.Footnote 10
This article focuses on a case that would normally be deemed outside the spatial and temporal boundaries of the “British world.” While scholars have recently expanded the geographical scope of British world studies, Argentina has not yet been prominently considered.Footnote 11 James Belich's Replenishing the Earth encompasses Argentina but it does not explicitly examine this community from a Greater British perspective; it emphasizes how trade relations over social and cultural forces shape national identity.Footnote 12 In John Darwin's account of the “orphans of empire,” those “settlers and expatriates” who remained after the end of empire, both formal and informal, the story of the Anglo-Argentine community ends with the nationalization of the British-owned railways in Argentina in the mid-twentieth century.Footnote 13 This article argues that the Anglo-Argentines' identification with Britain continued into the early 1980s, when war, rather than economics, dealt the most severe blow to their sense of Britishness. Using files from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, some of the very limited declassified material from the Argentine president's office, British and Argentine media sources, diaries, memoirs, and interviews, I consider Anglo-Argentine reactions to the Falklands War within a “British world” framework. While we must recognize the unique features of the Anglo-Argentine crisis in 1982, it also forms part of a larger process involving embattled Britons in disparate parts of the world at empire's end, from Kenya to Rhodesia, from Northern Ireland to Gibraltar.Footnote 14
A growing body of literature on the Anglo-Argentine connection has focused on trade links and informal imperialism, but the history of the Anglo-Argentines as a community has received less attention.Footnote 15 In its heyday, the British expatriate and settler community in Argentina mattered because it both was the largest British community outside the empire and the United States and played an important role in Argentina's socioeconomic life. The community emerged in the early nineteenth century largely due to the policies of British foreign minister George Canning, and it had its belle époque around the turn of the twentieth century due to sizeable British investments in Argentina and very close trade relations between the two countries. Many of Argentina's Britons occupied influential positions as estancieros (large landowners), merchants, bankers, and business people. By 1914, however, the community's influence had started to decline due, in part, to Britain's diminishing role in the Argentine economy. The 1933 Roca-Runciman Treaty, a commercial agreement that advantaged Britain and greatly benefited the Anglo-Argentines, generated widespread resentment in Argentina toward British domination and British residents. In the immediate post–World War II era, the British-owned railways were nationalized and British-Argentine trade relations rapidly deteriorated.
The Anglo-Argentine community's attachment to its “British” identity persisted throughout these developments. Many Anglo-Argentines had shown their loyalty to Britain in World War I (somewhat fewer did so in World War II), contributing financially and sending thousands of volunteers to fight with the British. Both World Wars saw the extension of community institutions that had protected and projected Anglo-Argentine “Britishness” for decades. Schools, social and sports clubs, churches—mainly of Anglican and Presbyterian denominations—and other ethnic institutions, such as charities, hospitals, and cultural institutes, helped keep the community united and passed on values and traditions to new generations. By the end of World War II, however, diminishing numbers and financial strains forced many such institutions to open membership to non-Anglos. A period of growing nationalism and political instability in the republic during the 1950s and 1960s—featuring three coups d’état and alternating military and civilian governments—inflicted severe wounds in the community's life, prompting some Anglo-Argentines to leave the country.
In 1982, the number of community members was estimated at one hundred thousand—including about 7,500 short-term residents and some seventeen thousand British passport holders (with a further thirty thousand entitled to citizenship). Anglo-Argentines were geographically dispersed around the country, but the largest concentrations were in Buenos Aires and its surrounding areas. Generational fissures became accentuated as younger Anglo-Argentines integrated more fully into Argentine life. Exogamy was increasingly common, yet many still adhered to their “Britishness” even though it was becoming evident to them that the object of their loyalties was largely an imaginary concept. The Falklands War violently magnified the contradictions inherent in their attachment to a “British” identity.Footnote 16 In what follows, I first focus on the outreach efforts of the Anglo-Argentine community and the reaction these provoked in Britain and in the Falklands. In the following section I look at community opinions as expressed in letters from Anglo-Argentines and editorial and opinion pieces in the Buenos Aires Herald. By highlighting key features of a “marginal” British community in the decades after decolonization, we can shed fresh light on an underexposed British world. An analysis of the Anglo-Argentine communities' interaction with other “British worlds” in the Falklands and the United Kingdom provides new insights about the relational qualities of national identity: crises of reciprocation can and do undermine forms of collective identification that might otherwise endure. Transnational bonds rest on assumptions of sameness that, if tested by conflict, can rapidly unravel—eroding, in turn, the internal cohesion of the localized groupings that claim to make up that global community. This particular case is a clear example of how the Falklands War magnified an underlying crisis of Greater Britain, liable to cause divisions, doubts, and tensions within British communities.
”WE DO NOT FEEL THAT OUR SITUATION HAS BEEN FULLY CONSIDERED”: PLEADING WITH BRITAIN
Shortly after the Argentine recovery of the Malvinas was announced on 2 April, the Junta reassured Britons in Argentina that they would be protected from any anti-British attacks. Yet a feeling of foreboding loomed over the community, which was exacerbated by the announcement that a British Task Force would set sail to the South Atlantic within days. Prompted by this state of uncertainty, influential Anglo-Argentines took immediate action. Both community organizations and prominent Anglo-Argentine personalities attempted—in different, and sometimes contradictory ways—to influence Britain's actions in the South Atlantic. The deployed rhetorical devices ranged from references to their common ethnic roots and traditions to their shared history of opposing fanaticism, and from loyalty to the crown to their long-standing business partnership. In doing so, they implicitly invoked the idea of Greater Britain, emphasizing the shared emotional, cultural, and material interests between Britain and Argentina.
Within a week of the Argentine invasion, messages from four different Anglo-Argentine organizations landed on Prime Minister Thatcher's desk. On 7 April the British Community Council (BCC), established in 1939 as a coordinating body to centralize “the cultural, philanthropic and charitable activities of native born Britons and peoples of British descent living in Argentina,” urged Thatcher “to seek a peaceful solution to this situation and give due consideration to the strong British presence in Argentina and the size of the community living here.”Footnote 17 Five days later, the Association of British and British-Descended Farmers in Argentina, an organization established for the occasion, sent another cable to Thatcher.Footnote 18 This telegram expressed the belief that the Falkland Islanders would be able to adapt to living under the Argentine flag in the same way as Argentina's Britons had long done: “for years, in some cases generations, we have lived and worked happily under Argentine governments of differing political persuasions. We have led our traditional, British way of life without any hindrance and our experience has led us to believe that the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands have nothing to lose and much to gain by coming under Argentine rule.” In a pointed postscript, the farmers also reminded Thatcher about the community's loyal contribution to Britain's war effort during the Second World War.Footnote 19 Other messages from Anglo-Argentines to Britain would highlight this point as well—perhaps as a way to fend off arguments that they were Argentine at heart.Footnote 20 Here the Anglo-Argentines were following a long tradition replicated all over the British world in times of crisis, emphasizing the sacrifice of servicemen in imperial wars—the ultimate display of authentic loyalty and proof that the common transnational bond uniting Britons across the globe was not merely biological, but one involving familial duties. These reminders of past sacrifices for the “mother country,” in turn, served to create a shared narrative among community members.
Messages continued to arrive on the prime minister's desk until the end of the conflict, although they became more sporadic.Footnote 21 In what was perhaps the final attempt by members of the Anglo-Argentine community to influence British decision making, on 31 May a group of women wrote to Queen Elizabeth II “in the hope that Her Majesty's influence will rectify the erroneous course taken by Mrs. Thatcher and her Government regarding the Malvinas Question.” In this heartfelt plea, the queen was asked “to understand the feelings of those attached to Great Britain by ties of blood and tradition,” and she was reminded that “not so long ago, men of our blood gave their lives in a war against the totalitarian governments of that time, fighting against despotism and fanatic inhuman policies.” Furthermore, by breaking a British “tradition of honour and behaviour,” the women continued, the actions of the previous weeks made the “British and their descendants resident in Argentina shameful of the acts and deeds of the actual [sic] British Government.”Footnote 22 These women invoked the incongruity between the British values they had inherited and their historically loyal stance on the one hand, and the United Kingdom government's actions on the other. By positioning themselves as loyal Britons, they echoed attitudes adopted by Rhodesian and Ulster unionist rebels during the 1960s and 1970s, when “loyalty” meant rebellion against Westminster and Whitehall. However, unlike the sympathy that Rhodesians had received in parts of Britain in the 1960s, the Anglo-Argentines' pleas gained little traction in London. The prime minister's reply was invariably a polite “no”—acknowledging the British community's contribution as well as expressing some sympathy for their plight, while stating in no uncertain terms that “the Falkland Islanders have made it clear that they wish to remain British.”Footnote 23 This attitude was well captured in a Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) document prepared in advance of an interview by an Argentine journalist: “We have given attention to the views that have been expressed but we have heard nothing which leads us even to begin to question the rectitude of our action in defending the rights and freedoms which are the basis of Western democracy.”Footnote 24
Other organizations, such as the Emergency Committee of the British Community expressed the expectation that emphasizing the long-standing admiration for Britain in Argentina might prove sufficient to convince London against military retaliation. They cabled Downing Street to repeat the argument that the Islanders would be able “to continue working in peace as indeed 17,000 British subjects already do under the Argentine flag.”Footnote 25 On 15 April, the British Chamber of Commerce in the Argentine Republic highlighted the historically “fruitful partnership between Argentine and British interests” over the decades. “Generations of Britons” living in Argentina had always “found respect and even admiration for British values and way of life,” and this “long history of friendship,” the message warned, could be “destroyed in one day but would require decades to repair.”Footnote 26 This telegram had the dual purpose of appealing to commonalities while issuing a severe warning against going to war. On one level, this replicated the pleas of “abandoned Britons” deployed by the Falkland Islanders during the 1960s and 1970s, though it contained an additional element of threat: Britain would also suffer from the breakdown in the relationship.Footnote 27
As the British forces retook South Georgia on 25 April, institutions changed tack: if thus far they had stressed common interests, sentiments, and culture, now they criticized the British government. A press report from the Co-ordinating Committee of the British Community in the Argentine Republic (a grouping cobbled together by representatives of the BCC and the British Chamber of Commerce) expressed unconditional support for Argentina. The document revealed disappointment at the perceived British obduracy towards Anglo-Argentine efforts, in sharp contrast with the openness of the Argentine nation.Footnote 28
Individual Anglo-Argentines also paid personal visits as well as making telephone calls to British politicians and members of Her Majesty's Government. A key figure was the influential businessman Bruce Carlisle. An FCO official described him as “an old acquaintance of the Secretary of State and … an important if elderly member of the British community in Buenos Aires.”Footnote 29 From his arrival in London in mid-April until late May, Carlisle tried to persuade several British ministers not to go to war with Argentina. While not sent as an official representative of the community, he was close to the chairman of the BCC, Guillermo (Bill) T. Murchison, and to members of the Argentine Junta. At a meeting with the foreign secretary, Francis Pym, Carlisle claimed to have a unique insight into Argentine society and politics. The Argentine government, he ventured, “was not a Fascist military junta but Argentina's best Government for 35 years.” His British roots, moreover, meant that he also understood the likely British response to aggression: he knew that the British “although slow to react, were implacable once stirred up.” Lastly, the British community possibly held the key to assuaging the Islanders' fears: “if the experiences of British people in Argentina was [sic] explained to [the Islanders] they would come to see the advantages of Argentine sovereignty.”Footnote 30 This belief, in fact, was central to the stance taken by many Anglo-Argentines on the crisis, who saw their community as the perfect mediator between Britain and Argentina.
Taking a slightly different slant, Tony Emerson, a British-born farmer living in Argentina and chairman of the Farmers' Association, took advantage of his return to the United Kingdom to try to negotiate a settlement with the British government. Though he introduced himself as a “moderate” Anglo-Argentine, whose “loyalties were with Britain over the Falklands crisis,” he did not hide his sympathy for the Anglo-Argentines.Footnote 31 In an effort to stave off an impending crisis, Emerson also stressed his unique vantage point as a member of the British community, offering to give guidance to his “‘moderate’ friends in Buenos Aires.”Footnote 32 He and the other prominent Anglo-Argentines who traveled to the United Kingdom met politicians such as Kenneth and Mark Carlisle (the latter, a cousin of Bruce Carlisle) in the House of Commons, and Lord Montgomery (son of the famous field marshall from the Second World War, and president of the Anglo-Argentine Society in London), in the higher chamber.Footnote 33 These politicians, in turn, passed on the messages received. If this implied agreement with their views, it never amounted to more than a perfunctory plea on their behalf. For all the rhetorical fanfare deployed by Anglo-Argentine institutions and individuals, their attempts to appeal to a Greater British link with the United Kingdom in order to arrest a full-scale war aroused little sympathy in Britain. Neither sentimental nor material arguments resonated with British decision makers; if Anglo-Argentines had taken their special position vis-à-vis the United Kingdom for granted, these political failures were beginning to manifest the weakness of that bond.
“A GROTESQUE PARODY OF ENGLISH LIFE”: THE ANGLO-ARGENTINES THROUGH UK EYES
This lack of reciprocity extended beyond the political realm as, by and large, the plight of the Anglo-Argentines did not gain much purchase in the United Kingdom. As far as the British public was concerned, letters from constituents to their MPs during the conflict suggest that British voters rarely considered the Anglo-Argentines, and those that did were mostly individuals or organizations with strong links to Argentina.Footnote 34 A few mentioned the threats to the welfare of the British community, and others submitted proposals as to how to protect the Anglo-Argentines.Footnote 35 Yet these are the rare exceptions that prove the rule: the affinities between the British and Anglo-Argentine peoples were distinctly one-sided.
Most UK newspapers did not fail to mention the tensions and fears of retaliation that the community experienced, or to report about the telegrams from the various Anglo-Argentine institutions;Footnote 36 but only a handful wrote about the conflict of loyalties that afflicted the members of the group.Footnote 37 In contrast to other settler communities around the British world, the Anglo-Argentines were commonly described as aberrant Britons by virtue of their wealth and social status.Footnote 38 The vehemently pro-Thatcher Daily Express took the most disparaging line in this regard, with a report at the end of April accusing the “British ‘fat cats’ who back the Argentine Junta” of hypocrisy. Their claim to Britishness, the reporter stressed, was no more than a façade disguising their desire to preserve a “rich and splendid” lifestyle, “even if it means siding with the enemy in a time of war.” These Anglo-Argentines, he added, were “not British in any legal sense,” since they “were born in Argentina, they speak Spanish and they carry Argentinian passports.” Admittedly, they still preserved certain “British” traditions: “they still speak English at home, and in their clubs,” they “send their children to English-language schools and they still toast to the Queen.”Footnote 39 But this did not automatically grant them the status of “fellow Britons,” capable of stirring widespread support in the British domestic arena: unlike the Falkland Islanders, the Anglo-Argentines had lost their kith and kin relationship to Britain. A third of the Falkland Islanders—ruled out for British citizenship under the 1981 Nationality Act—would have been of no interest to Britain. Neither did speaking Spanish have anything to do with the law. Perhaps what this reveals is not a coherent argument but a rhetorical strategy of “othering”: in time of war, Britain could not afford to show any sympathy for the Anglo-Argentines, who seemed to support the enemy. Britons in the United Kingdom understood the Anglo-Argentines' bilingualism as a signifier of foreignness; attempts to accentuate their “British” traditions resulted in ridicule for being antiquated, and thus inauthentic, aberrant Britons.
Sometimes Anglo-Argentines were criticized for being duplicitous, which pushed them further out of the realm of being truly British. In the aftermath of the conflict, the Spectator published a long, anonymous letter from an Anglo-Argentine woman expressing her pain at the realization that the Britain she cherished no longer existed, which provoked angry comments among readers.Footnote 40 Deriding the hypocrisy of the Anglo-Argentines' self-styled Britishness, one reader retorted, “Had we acquiesced in the takeover she would, I am confident, have preened herself on being a citizen of a confident thrusting nation rather than poor old decadent Britain.”Footnote 41 It is instructive that an oft-highlighted issue within the United Kingdom—namely, social and economic inequality—was being transposed onto this particular case in order to dismiss the claims of a British community in a hostile country. As I discuss below, there were echoes of this view in the Islands also, where wealth and business interests undermined the validity of Anglo-Argentine Britishness.
There was a certain degree of sympathy for the community in some British quarters, but it did not translate into the sort of vociferous support that the Islanders were afforded during the war. Rather, these feeble feelings of affinity only served to place the Anglo-Argentines at one remove from the United Kingdom. Perhaps the most sympathetic coverage came from the Telegraph, whose treatment of the matter revealed a superficial appreciation of their Britishness (or Englishness)—though this seemed more a narcissistic sympathy than a bond of kinship that would spur Britons to their defense. One piece described the typical Anglo-Argentine as “more English than the English in his principles and behaviour, more Argentine than the Argentines in patriotism,”Footnote 42 while another remarked that most were “indistinguishable to the naked eye from the middle to upper crust of the Home Counties.”Footnote 43 A long piece published two days after the Argentine invasion, moreover, recounted vivid scenes at the Richmond Tea Rooms in downtown Buenos Aires and at the Hurlingham Club—where British sports such as cricket, golf, and polo converged in an atmosphere redolent of upper-class Britain in decades past. Moving towards the southern (and notably less wealthy) districts of the capital, one could find St. George's school, “a handsome establishment said by many to be ‘more English than the English.’” All of these institutions were said to “have perpetuated what can only be described as a vigorous ‘Englishness.’”Footnote 44 Yet this was no plea for Argentina's Britons. This subdued warmth towards the Anglo-Argentines remained very shallow, becoming in the pages of the Telegraph a mere curiosity, rather like a museum piece dusted off for exhibition. Becoming “more British than the British” was not uncommon in other realms of the British world—or indeed in other former European colonies—particularly where there was a fear of assimilation by a larger culture or ethnic group. Since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia, this form of hyper-Britishness had acquired distinctly pejorative connotations; such rhetoric of renunciation placed Anglo-Argentines among a larger group of aberrant Britons who had long been disowned by Britain. Even more to the point, some of those articles contained an element of British self-congratulation for “civilizing” Argentina: “More than any other colonial power,” one report concluded, “we provided them, through the forerunners of today's Anglo-Argentines, with the foundations of a civilised life.”Footnote 45 Statements of this sort—describing no more than an interesting historical fact—barely elicited support for the community, and reflected the general attitudes towards Argentina's Britons in the UK national media: their treatment was scant and lukewarm at best, and derisive at worst. Lacking support in the print media and public opinion, their hopes of success in other political arenas were limited.
The British community's efforts did not fare any better in Westminster. The number of MPs and Lords who brought up their plight in debates is almost negligible, and most of them were members of the opposition. For the most part, the focus was on the welfare of the seventeen thousand British passport holders in Argentina who could expect to be protected by the UK government—but this topic was generally afforded only a brief mention, rather than a developed argument.Footnote 46 Only on one occasion during the entire conflict did the House of Commons debates refer specifically to the roughly one hundred thousand Argentines of British descent, most of whom had no legal links with the United Kingdom.Footnote 47 The Anglo-Argentines were mentioned more frequently in the House of Lords, albeit only by three Lords: Lord Montgomery of the Anglo-Argentine Society in London, former Labor commonwealth secretary Philip Noel-Baker, and Lord John Monson.Footnote 48 The latter, in fact, dismissed this issue as a “red herring”: “Of course we feel for them and of course we sympathise with them,” he declared, “but their interests cannot rank very high in our order of priorities.”Footnote 49 As with the media, few British politicians were prepared to make a strong case for the Anglo-Argentines, perhaps because it did not seem politically expedient and safe to do so: there was precious little pressure both from constituents and the media for action on behalf of the community's plight.
Finally, while the safety of British residents and passport holders in Argentina did receive a certain amount of attention from FCO officials in Whitehall and from the War Cabinet, the documents dealing with their fate reveal prevailing attitudes about the Anglo-Argentines in official circles.Footnote 50 As is evident from the British government's response to their pleas, UK officials considered the Anglo-Argentines as British only insofar as they were British citizens or subjects. Descendants without dual nationality “should be regarded as fully-fledged Argentines without any formal connections with this country,” stated one official brief for the War Cabinet. Similarly, the de facto British ambassador in Buenos Aires during the conflict (based at what became part of the Swiss Embassy when diplomatic ties were broken) explained why a mass evacuation of British subjects from Argentina had never materialized.Footnote 51 The Anglo-Argentines remained in Argentina “because they are so deeply integrated into Argentine society so as to feel, and be, part and parcel of it. True, they retain the external trappings which mark them out as of British culture, but, after living the vicissitudes of this country they are as Argentine as the next Argentine, be his origin Italian, Spanish, German, Lebanese or Arab. They are at heart Argentine.”Footnote 52 In essence, this message expressed a preference for civic over ethnic nationalism, yet what ultimately defined the Anglo-Argentines' identity was their sentiment: because they were “at heart Argentine,” they were not considered British. Perhaps this emphasizes the chasm between the FCO and the Anglo-Argentines, who were invoking a Greater British link with the United Kingdom, showing how obsolete that worldview had become in official British eyes. Indeed, in the heyday of empire putting down roots outside Britain did not entail ceasing to be British “at heart,” because the object of one's loyalty was not defined by place of birth or residence, but by bonds of kinship, sentiment, and tradition.
Another exchange between Foreign Office diplomats reveals the intensity of this difference in views: to some, the Anglo-Argentines' attachment to Britain was detestable. In a letter from Buenos Aires to Whitehall from May 1982, David Dewberry enclosed some cuttings from the Buenos Aires Herald on the Anglo-Argentine dilemma, as well as a letter from the daughter of a very prominent member of the community. Interestingly, he concluded with amusement that their change of allegiance would be a salutary event. “Anglo-Argentine ‘society,’” he remarked, “has for many years been a grotesque parody of English life as it might have been in the twenties. We should not mourn its passing.” At the receiving end, Robin Fearn did not find them “amusing but tragic”—yet they were only so because “Argentine propaganda lies” would persist among members of the community, not because the British link was fading away.Footnote 53 Dewberry's criticism was a common accusation against similar “minority” British communities the world over. White Rhodesians and Ulster unionists, and sometimes also Kenyan settlers, were often regarded as feverish, anachronistic, and old-fashioned societies, who flaunted their loyalty in ways that many people in the United Kingdom considered embarrassing.Footnote 54 Embarrassment, as a clear marker of “otherness” within the scope of national identity, placed those who invoked it outside the main group, thus excluding the Anglo-Argentines from the British world they claimed to inhabit.
In sum, in most areas of British public life, the Anglo-Argentines' messages seem to have had very little impact, if any at all. While there were some lone voices defending their cause, these were very much on the fringes and politically ineffective. Most people, unaware of their loyalty dilemma, remained indifferent, while some cast aspersions for what appeared to be collusion with the Junta in order to protect their interests. Accusations of this kind need to be handled carefully; a brief glance at the domestic political context in Argentina can provide a more nuanced picture.
The period since the overthrow of Perón in 1955 had been one of instability, growing social unrest, and a downward-spiraling economy. The British community deteriorated during this time, not only because of the financial strains it endured, but also due to cases of violent persecution. By the early 1970s, several left-wing armed guerrilla factions, and their right-wing counterparts (notably, the “Triple A” death squad), had been established. Members of the British community and their institutions became targets of terrorist acts, such as kidnapping and murder—generally from left-wing groupings—which explains why many in the community greeted the March 1976 coup with a sense of relief. The new Junta vowed to put an end to guerrilla terrorism; they would also implement a neoliberal economic system that favored many Anglo-Argentine business leaders. However, the brutal Proceso de Reorganización Nacional imposed by the Junta, purporting to transform Argentine society and its economy by means of widespread censorship and state terrorism—including abduction, torture, and execution—had disastrous effects for the country. By 1982, the Proceso had claimed the lives of thousands of people, the economy was in tatters, and there were growing public manifestations of social discontent.Footnote 55
The fact that some Anglo-Argentines served in the armed forces may have facilitated cooperation, and they may have played a role in ensuring the protection of the community.Footnote 56 The Junta sought to at least portray a public image of protector of the community, regularly approaching leading members of the community to ask about the well-being of the Anglo-Argentines,Footnote 57 citing the Anglo-Argentine telegrams at the United Nations, and encouraging Argentine diplomats to remind the United States of Argentine appreciation for the British community.Footnote 58 A convergence of interests thus may have led to harmonious relations between some members of the community and the Junta. More broadly, the Anglo-Argentines' support for Argentina's views on the Malvinas would earn them the praise of other Argentines during the conflict.Footnote 59
Assuming a shared, common Britishness, the Anglo-Argentines envisioned themselves at the intersection of the views, interests, and cultures of three societies—Argentina, Britain, and the Falklands. The fact that their message did not resonate in the Falklands or Britain, however, speaks volumes about how and why the Falklands War brought about an identity crisis among the Anglo-Argentines: long-held assumptions about Britain as “home” were finally revealed to be a mirage. This would prompt some to look for a new form of national identification in argentinidad.
”FRIGHTFULLY BRITISH”: THE ANGLO-ARGENTINES IN STANLEY
During the conflict, Anglo-Argentines also tried to reach out to the Falkland Islanders on the basis of a shared Britishness. The Islanders' reaction to these initiatives is indicative of the chasm separating the “British worlds” that each grouping claimed to inhabit. A key episode concerned the visits to the Falkland Islands by a delegation of Anglo-Argentines on 16 and 23 April. The idea seems to have originated from a proposal made to Dr. Richard Cutts, Anglican bishop of Argentina and the archbishop of Canterbury's Episcopal Commissary to the Falklands, to allow a group of Anglo-Argentines to join him on his planned pastoral visit to the Falkland Islands. But in the face of public controversy, the archbishop of Canterbury halted the proposal. Cutts apologized to the prime minister, explaining that his intentions had been “purely pastoral and non-political,” and that he had acted on the archbishop of Canterbury's request to further “the cause of reconciliation and justice.” But his stance on the crisis was no secret: his signature had featured very prominently in the telegram from the Emergency Committee to Mrs. Thatcher.Footnote 60 The first delegation, made up of six Anglo-Argentines, and not including Cutts, finally traveled to the Falklands on 16 April. During this brief visit, they met members of the Falklands' Executive Council as well as several locals, whose reaction was almost uniform: distant, cool, and ultimately not prepared to accept any advice from the Anglo-Argentines.Footnote 61
Despite having failed on their first attempt, the delegation returned the following week to propose building a separate town for the Argentines, allowing the Islanders to keep their way of life and customs. They claimed they had submitted this scheme to Lieutenant General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri (who had ousted General Roberto Viola in December 1981 to become president of Argentina); the fact that they had flown in the presidential airplane meant that he at least approved of their efforts.Footnote 62 On arrival in Stanley, the deputation announced their proposal over the radiotelephone and summoned a public meeting at the post office, eliciting firm rejections from the Falkland Islanders. The post office meeting was particularly ill-tempered, to such an extent that “it almost broke into open violence and all you could hear were cries of ‘Get out, and stay out.’”Footnote 63
The locals' responses to the proposals reveal how suspicious the Falkland Islanders were of the British community in Argentina: “Most people here consider that they are only there as long as their pockets are full,” explained one.Footnote 64 “Although most frightfully British,” added another, “they are completely in the grip of the Argentines. They don't appear to have any real loyalty; only a noxious mixture of greed and snobbery, probably more dangerous than the Argentines themselves.”Footnote 65 A young Falkland Islander grumbled, “[t]here is no creature worse than an Anglo-Argie—their loyalty is purely to their pocket and the country which best suits their pocket at the time and NOTHING else.”Footnote 66
This instance points to radically different understandings of what was at stake. As one Falkland Islander complained, the Anglo-Argentines seemed to think that maintaining “the islanders' ‘way of life’” meant keeping the superficial existence of “a simple, camp community.”Footnote 67 Needless to say, the Anglo-Argentine community would not have shared this assessment. After all, they valued “British identity” and “traditions” very highly. Here, perhaps, a Buenos Aires Herald editorial may reveal other aspects of how the Anglo-Argentines viewed the Falkland Islanders. While stressing the importance of common descent, the editorial also exposed the widely divergent worldviews of Falkland Islanders and Anglo-Argentines, describing the “Kelpers” as “an insular people,” whose “ties with Britain are based on what they are familiar with (the history of their ancestors, the language and the Falkland Islands Company, to which many of them owe house and home).” In contrast to the charges leveled from Stanley, the Falkland Islanders were said to hold “no direct links with Britain itself either socially [or] politically.” The Falkland Islanders' suspicion was depicted as simply an issue of geographical isolation and language, which could be easily overcome—and thus the optimal solution lay with the Anglo-Argentines: “if people from the mainland of their same descent and speaking their same language can make contact with them, their eventual return to normal life, this time under Argentine rule, will be made much easier.”Footnote 68 Yet perhaps in the eyes of the Anglo-Argentines it was not just a matter of maintaining a simple way of life; there was a deeper discrepancy between the two communities. For the Anglo-Argentines, the Falkland Islanders' fixation to remain under British sovereignty showed that they did not have a true appreciation for what it meant to be “British.” These contrasting views underline the conceptual void that had opened up between Falkland Islanders' and Anglo-Argentines' respective understandings of “British identity” and “traditions.” They epitomized one of the fundamental differences between the two “British” communities separated by the Argentine Sea—namely, the importance attached to British sovereignty in order to protect British values and traditions. Understanding the dysfunctional dynamics between these self-styled British communities—the rhetoric of “othering” informing their relationship, a failure of trust, and a lack of empathy for each other—provides a unique insight into the dwindling conceptual purchase of the British world: both groupings individually claimed to be part of Greater Britain, yet they simultaneously rejected each other's vision of Britishness, thus stressing the fragmented nature of this supposedly global community. While British world arguments resonated in parts of the United Kingdom in relation to the Falklands during the war, the divergent views of Falkland Islanders and Anglo-Argentines demonstrate the limited reach of this concept by 1982. Indeed, Greater Britain had always been understood as a global concept uniting communities across the globe in all directions, and not merely between colony/dominion and metropole.
The Falkland Islanders' icy reception did not stop the Anglo-Argentines from trying other initiatives, however. About three weeks later, prompted by the escalation of the conflict, the BCC proposed to the British prime minister that a temporary cease-fire be declared in order to evacuate the Falklands' children to Anglo-Argentine homes in mainland Argentina.Footnote 69 This plan seemed altruistic to the Anglo-Argentines but was spurned by Falkland Islanders. While there is no evidence of any official response from London, some London-based Falkland Islanders spoke out against it, stressing the level of mistrust for the Anglo-Argentines and asking them, instead, to persuade “the Argentines to remove themselves from the islands,” while in the Falklands the proposal was not even considered.Footnote 70 These criticisms did not go unnoticed among the Anglo-Argentines, who condemned those who had rejected this initiative, yet it also led others to censure the BCC for its “naive misunderstanding of island opinion.”Footnote 71
In one sense, it is not surprising that the outreach efforts of the Anglo-Argentines were spurned by the Falkland Islanders, given that their islands had been forcibly invaded by Argentina. Yet their rejection of a Greater British link with them is more complex. In terms of ethnic origins, sentiments, and culture, many Anglo-Argentines were as close to the Falkland Islanders as Britons in the United Kingdom. It was perhaps because the Anglo-Argentines accepted Argentine rule, and especially because they stood at the opposite end of the spectrum on the issue of the Falklands dispute, that they were depicted as foreign. This would also feed into doubts and disagreements among the Anglo-Argentine community about their Britishness.
”BETRAYED AND HEARTBROKEN”: A COMMUNITY DIVIDED
The Falklands conflict forced the Anglo-Argentines to reevaluate their national identity. The parameters for the debate were often set by the Buenos Aires Herald, the only remaining major daily of the Anglo-Argentine community by 1982. The Herald's editorial stance since the mid-1960s had made a distinction between the Malvinas' sovereignty and the Falkland Islanders' way of life; and while it supported Argentina's claim, it showed a degree of empathy towards the Falkland Islanders, who shared common roots, language, and traditions with the Anglo-Argentines. Their experience as a British community in Argentina, moreover, provided the framework through which they saw the Falkland Islands' future under Argentine sovereignty.Footnote 72
With the invasion of the Malvinas in April 1982, the newspaper reflected anxiety over the fate of the community in Argentina, prompted in part by instances of ostracism, bullying, and criticism of community members by their Argentine peers. The Herald presented itself as “an integral and necessary part of Argentine national life,” and it sought to find a place for the Anglo-Argentine community within the Argentine nation, alongside other ethnic groupings, thus providing a solution to the problem of successfully integrating the Falkland Islanders into Argentina.Footnote 73 Around mid-April, the newspaper changed leadership, as the British-born editor, James Neilson, was forced to flee to Uruguay. Dan Newland, the American-born interim editor-in-chief, took a far more explicit pro-Argentine (though not unambiguously pro-regime) stance to highlight the corruption in Britain's manner of waging war, seeing in the escalation of violence the true and perfidious intentions of London. Whether or not the external pressures from the Junta were connected to the changes in the newspaper's editorial line, what is most significant is that the opinions expressed in the Herald had the capacity to frame the wider debate in the community.Footnote 74 Here again, the views of individuals often differed from that of community institutions, but the former tended to couch their views in response to statements from the latter.
Though many Anglo-Argentines chose to keep a low profile during the crisis, the war undoubtedly caused ruptures among families and friends.Footnote 75 Public and private letters can give us a glimpse of the discussions that took place among Anglo-Argentines. A key theme under scrutiny was the meaning and significance of “British values,” enacted in the local British spaces of churches, clubs, schools, and charities. The key events of the war prompted many Anglo-Argentines to question the applicability of those traditional British values to Britain itself, echoing some of the editorials from the Herald. The war, in fact, seemed to show that the United Kingdom had veered very far from the path. One reader of the Herald, for example, felt “betrayed and heartbroken” because, though she had always been proud of the British values of “chivalry, fair play and honesty” (inherited through her “pure Anglo-Saxon ancestry”), the British government's actions to recover South Georgia had shown that “none of those virtues apply.” The war had proven to her that those virtues, in fact, applied more readily to Argentina, leading her to declare: “As far as I'm concerned, as from yesterday I am 101 percent Argentine.”Footnote 76 The novelty of this discovery reveals how uncritical and naïve many Anglo-Argentines had been in their views of Britain until then. They were undergoing a similar experience to that of millions of Britons around the globe who had “discovered” after the end of empire that the country they had long cherished as “home” was a far cry from their idealized image of Britain. Other members of the British community expressed similar views. An Anglo-Argentine woman wrote to the Spectator in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, dejected to find how false was the “picture of a wise, mature mother country” that she had always cherished. This had led her to the discovery “that I was in fact an Argentine.”Footnote 77 Another woman, writing to Mrs. Thatcher in the aftermath of the sinking of the Belgrano, felt “ashamed at Gt. Britain's abominable behaviour.” The country that prided itself of doing “everything on principle” had been found not to have any at all. Like the previous writer, this woman chose to express her change of allegiance categorically—enclosing her British passport with the letter as proof.Footnote 78 This feeling of despondency at the apparent loss of British values in the United Kingdom was reflected in numerous other letters to the Herald. For instance, an Anglo-Argentine, though “proud of [her] British heritage,” was “distressed to see that this ‘present haughtiness of demeanour’ will bring about a loss of British influence and prestige in South America.”Footnote 79 Another reader lamented the British government's apparent relentlessness in “butchering our young lads so that they can keep their third-rate citizens living in feudal times, all in the name of democracy.”Footnote 80
Closely linked to British values was the attitude of “dishonesty” that many Anglo-Argentines ascribed to the Conservative government's execution of the war—a view exacerbated by Britain's disregard for the community's initiatives concerning the Falkland Islanders' future. If Britain claimed to uphold “its sacred responsibility for the rights of the British subjects,” asked one vexed reader, why had “the 17,000 strongly pro-Argentine British subjects just across the water from the Malvinas not [been] consulted”? For the author of the letter, this showed not so much Britain's indifference towards the Anglo-Argentines as its skullduggery. Otherwise, he continued, why were they not being protected from the “brutal fascist dictator” that the British politicians and media constantly talked about?Footnote 81 Another bone of contention was the issue of loyalty. This ranged from devotion to their country of birth or adoption (Argentina) to allegiance to the British crown—in most cases, clearly distinguished from the British government. The loyalty owed to Argentina was construed as a debt of gratitude, as to “turn against the Argentine would be like biting the hand that fed them.”Footnote 82 After making wartime contributions to Britain—“a country,” one writer remarked, “which most of us barely knew”—now the time had come to show gratitude towards Argentina, “a country which we do know.”Footnote 83 Another writer, irked by the Daily Express's ridiculing the “British ‘fat cats'” who supported the Junta, argued that not many Anglo-Argentines had been able to toast “the king on the battlefields during the last World War,” since “many of them fell in battle and could not return to toast the welfare of their country, the Argentine Republic.”Footnote 84 These writers embraced a new definition of Anglo-Argentine identity, one based on country of birth or adoption, rather than on blood, tradition, and values, which had rapidly lost their capacity to resonate meaningfully. Likewise, the idea of home had come to acquire a different meaning for many, as reflected in a letter published in the Spanish-language daily La Nación blaming Prime Minister Thatcher for inciting Anglo-Argentines to hate Britain: “I used to visit Great Britain,” she stated, “and every time I arrived there I felt like I was at home. From now on, I will never again set foot on British soil.”Footnote 85
The theme of home and national allegiance was further explored in a letter from Catherine Kirby to the Herald at the end of June, which displayed the thought process experienced by many Anglo-Argentines. A key idea in her letter was that allegiance to another country had become obsolete. She reflected on her struggle as an Anglo-Argentine to find her “national conscience.” While her generation had mixed more with “the ‘natives'” (meaning Argentines of non-British descent), they had also inherited the British values of “fair play” and “team effort.” Crucially, however, a sense of “English ‘arrogance’” prevalent among the Anglo-Argentine community was causing a “dual ‘national conscience,’” leading them not to feel at home in either country. The solution lay with accepting Argentina as “our home and … be proud to be part of it”—using their British values for the advancement of their nation.Footnote 86 This was not a decision to be taken lightly; it constituted a radical shift for most Anglo-Argentines. As an Anglo-Argentine from Rosario stated in a private letter, for most members of the British community the war had “meant—probably for the first time in our lives—almost total identification with Argentina,” partly because their initiatives had been unreciprocated both in the United Kingdom and in the Falklands. Indeed, the Falkland Islanders' snub to Argentina's Britons seemed to have elicited new levels of exasperation: “the idiots,” she grumbled, “wouldn't even entrust their children to the care of Anglo-Argentine families who offered to take them while the fighting went on.”Footnote 87 Bill Schwarz's work on the Central African Federation in the 1960s observes how similar tensions came to a head due to what he terms an irreversible failure of “mutuality” between British settlers in Africa and their masters in London. While these differences were long inherent to the Greater British relationship, decolonization prompted them to turn “into outright antagonism.”Footnote 88
In some cases, this deep disillusionment with Britain tacitly emulated the attitudes adopted by other British communities since the onset of decolonization. White Rhodesians and Ulster loyalists had in different ways professed loyalty to the idea of Britain while promoting disobedience to Westminster. This was a line of argument that some Anglo-Argentines followed, maintaining that to side with Argentina in the war did not mean disloyalty to the queen or to their British identity. One reader, echoing the cries of other embattled British loyalists around the globe, went as far as to call “patriot[s]” all those “who condemn what Britain is doing here,” while those who approved of it “might as well have been born in Weissnichtwo, for all they know of the meaning of the word British.”Footnote 89 Another conceded that people were entitled to support the British campaign, yet they would be “very wrong to imply that those who did not agree with the view were in any way less loyal to Her Majesty than himself.”Footnote 90 Opinions such as these were bound to generate rifts within the community.Footnote 91 One writer, for example, derided the apparent community-wide change of loyalties, sarcastically suggesting that Anglo-Argentines donate their decorations “to the local Patriotic Fund for sale to numismatists.”Footnote 92 Another, British-born author lambasted those who, “after deriving great benefit from their British connection in the past,” had decided to abandon their Britishness when it became less convenient to them.Footnote 93
Thus the panorama of Anglo-Argentine public opinion that we glean from these letters is a complex one, and one that highlights the extent of discord. The divergent views of Anglo-Argentine individuals and organizations show here that despite the appearance of an unequivocal embrace of the British world ideal at the institutional level, the war had magnified the latent contradictions within the concept of Greater Britain in each person's understanding. At a more global level, this failure of mutual identification not only drove a wedge between the various “British” communities implicated in the crisis, but also affected the internal cohesion of the individual groupings themselves.
THE ANGLO-ARGENTINE DILEMMA
These divisions were the result of a deeper change in the thinking of many Anglo-Argentines, whereby blood and tradition had ceased to be regarded as determinants of national identification. Devoid of this object of allegiance, many turned to their place of birth or residence, coming to see it in a new light. In their efforts to understand their place within the Argentine nation, Anglo-Argentines met difficulties not unlike those of the “new nationalist” drive in the British world in the wake of empire, where erstwhile British communities had sought to create new national myths rooted in their territories, new histories, flags, and anthems.Footnote 94 It was far from a teleological and unproblematic evolution; in this global context of the unraveling of Greater Britain, the changes within the Anglo-Argentine community reveal the wide reach of the crisis of Britishness.
This transformation within the Anglo-Argentine community was analyzed in a Buenos Aires Herald opinion piece from 13 May. Written by the columnist Ronald Hansen, it was a very conscious effort by an Anglo-Argentine to come to terms with the identity dilemma facing the community, and provoked many responses—both in favor and against. Hansen was a so-called true Anglo-Argentine: he was born in Argentina of British parents, was educated in a “British” school in Argentina, and was an active member of the community.Footnote 95 Hansen focused on the recent infighting within the community. These differences reflected the inability of some “to grasp the process of change that has taken place in their midst.” The war had brought to the fore the desire of many “individual community members … to affirm their real identity and break out” of what he called an “uneasy, largely self-imposed condition of foreigners in their own country.” The key catalyst, however, had been Britain's belligerent attitude. Anglo-Argentines, finally and irreparably “alienated,” were led to “attack the Rubicon they really wanted to cross years ago.” Thanks to this, the “the vast majority of Anglo-Argentines have now realized clearly where their loyalties lie.” But there remained “those Anglo-Argentines … who still value their British ascendancy over their Argentine nationality.” They had a choice between accepting the Argentine stance or continuing to live “in a ghetto of their own creation.”Footnote 96
Although Hansen's analysis had its merits, he ultimately missed the point. There was nothing unique about this “self-imposed condition of foreigners in their own country.” The sense of a common kinship, material interests, and values and traditions that transcended political and geographical borders, was not the sole preserve of the Anglo-Argentines. Rather, it was shared by communities scattered around the globe that saw themselves as part of a “British world.” It was the sheer extent of this global dispersal of people that rendered “Greater Britain” plausible as an object of civic loyalty. That Hansen was unable to think comparatively suggests how this sense of a global Britishness had evaporated among members of the community. In this light, the attitude of many Anglo-Argentines in rejecting Britain was based on a newfound awareness that those commonalities no longer existed.
The question remains, however, as to whether the Falklands War produced an irrevocable rupture within the community. While many divided families made amends after the conflict, circumstances in Argentina made a “return to normality” very difficult.Footnote 97 Despite a spell of cordial relations in the 1990s, official antagonism towards Britain has been prevalent since the 1980s—with poor trade relations playing an important role. There have been numerous demonstrations of public hostility towards Britain, such as the April 1984 attack on the George Canning statue in Plaza Fuerza Aérea, in which a group of war veterans and activists pulled the figure off its pedestal and cast it into the river Plate.Footnote 98 Other permanent changes in the urban landscape—in addition to the ones mentioned at the outset—reflect a similar anti-British logic, such as the renaming of Avenida Canning and its corresponding underground station in Buenos Aires after Raúl Scalabrini Ortíz, an eminent twentieth-century Argentine writer, who had vehemently denounced British “colonialism” in Argentina.Footnote 99 Moreover, important “British” icons disappeared: Harrods (Buenos Aires) closed down in 1998; the English Social Club in Lomas de Zamora, struggling to recruit new members, had to shut down temporarily in 2002; and the iconic Richmond Tea Rooms gave way to a Nike store in 2011, to the chagrin of many Anglo-Argentines.Footnote 100 Although there were other factors at play here, these closures also reflected their rapidly shrinking core clientele.
The demography of the community is clearly changing, reflected by the BCC's rebranding itself the Argentine British Community Council in 1993.Footnote 101 Anglican and Presbyterian churches have long conducted their main services in Spanish. And sporadic reports in the British media since 1982 confirm that the community's Britishness is rapidly fading out.Footnote 102 It is estimated that some fifteen thousand Anglo-Argentines currently live in the Buenos Aires area. The younger community members are now largely Spanish speaking and their loyalties unmistakably lie with Argentina.Footnote 103 Thus, although an expatriate British community still exists (as in countless other global cities), this no longer evinces the same peculiar characteristics that typified the Anglo-Argentine mentality prior to 1982.
The cumulative weight of the evidence presented here suggests that the Falklands War was a transformative event for the Anglo-Argentine community, bearing out Pietsch's notion that British world identities were inherently relational. The failure of the Anglo-Argentine initiatives in London and Stanley dashed hopes of averting a war by appealing to a shared Britishness, thereby rendering their object of loyalty obsolete in the eyes of many. Among the Anglo-Argentines, British, and Falkland Islanders, notions of Britishness were diverging. When Anglo-Argentines invoked loyalty to Britain in the two World Wars, mutual commercial interests, British descent, values, and traditions, they still appeared to believe in Greater Britain's power as rhetorical signifier; they became disabused of this assumption when faced with the responses from Britons and Islanders. What is striking is not that Britain and the Falkland Islands rejected the Anglo-Argentine proposals but that the British community in Argentina had so readily anticipated that their understanding of “Greater Britain” would be reciprocated. With their expectations shattered, Anglo-Argentine resentment at British hypocrisy intensified. This rejection foregrounded fundamental differences over unifying qualities, thus making a transnational idea of identity increasingly unviable. If Greater Britain had endured as a global civic idea for decades, it was largely thanks to a mutual understanding of a shared inherent sameness. By 1982, this belief had faded almost entirely, and the Falklands War served to highlight the fictional qualities of the Anglo-Argentine assumptions of “being British.”
The story of the Anglo-Argentines needs to be more firmly placed within a “British world” framework. As in other parts of the declining empire, from Rhodesia to Australasia to Hong Kong, the Falklands conflict produced conflicting visions of “Greater Britain” not only among societies physically distant from each other, but also within those societies. This brought to the fore the fragmented, contingent nature of the British world enacted in Anglo-Argentine society. Looking at the community within a “British world” framework suggests that by the early 1980s the so-called Anglo-Argentine connection had all but vanished, while the sentiments of kinship were highly asymmetrical and generally unreciprocated. Even the localized iteration of a British community in Argentina was merely a remnant of the influential grouping of yesteryear. The community of interest between the Anglo-Argentines and Great Britain had evaporated long before 1982, and most Anglo-Argentines were aware that the golden age of the British community had been fading for decades. Nevertheless, here was a community that, to some extent, still believed it was part of a broader communion of a Greater Britain transcending geographical boundaries. This reveals how an idea that in every other respect was almost entirely obsolete could persist in more isolated British communities, particularly where Britons were not constitutionally linked with the United Kingdom: perhaps because they had never “officially” been part of the empire, its members were able to continue believing that they were part of a wider community long after is dissolution. It is remarkable that it took the Falklands War to disabuse many Anglo-Argentines of their imagined British connection, after that link had previously weathered the nationalization of the railways and the rise of militant nationalism in Argentina. And yet in that sense they were by no means atypical; their experience was emblematic of the fate of Greater Britain in other parts of the world that held on to the bitter end—the “orphans of empire,” in John Darwin's resonant turn of phrase.Footnote 104 Often a pronounced crisis is required for ideas of community and cultural affinity to be put to the test. The Anglo-Argentine story suggests that notions of community can survive, unchallenged, long after the material links that traditionally sustained them have dissolved.
