Spitsbergen - Imperialists beyond the British Empire

This paper looks at the relationship between Spitsbergen in the European High Arctic and the global British Empire in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Spitsbergen was an uninhabited no man's land and comprised an unknown quantity of natural resources. The concepts of geopolitics and New imperialism are used to show why and how British imperialists strove to explore and exploit the archipelago. Actors such as Conway, Bruce, the Royal Geographical Society, mining companies, and governmental departments represent the overlapping interests of discovery, science, commerce, and politics. Their interactions were additionally shaped by the shifting historical context that initially focused on maintaining the balance of power in Europe, but culminated in the First World War, which placed an emphasis on coal and iron ore reserves as well as anti-German policies. The imperialist actors were united under common anxieties, but their approaches were multi-directional and therefore ineffectual. In 1920, the Spitsbergen Treaty granted Norwegian sovereignty and initiated the slow decline of British commerce on the islands. If the British Government refused a potential European colony in view of former German territory gained elsewhere can as of yet not be proven