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Scotland - 20th Century Scotland
Tied as it was to the health of the British Empire, Scotland suffered after the First World War as it had gained beforehand.
In the Highlands, which, for cultural reasons, had provided a disproportionate number of recruits for the British army, a whole generation of young men were lost, and many villages and communities suffered greatly.
In the Lowlands, particularly Glasgow, the terrible working and living conditions for the industrial workers, many of whom did not agree with the motives of the war, led to industrial and political unrest.
John MacLean became a key political figure in Red Clydeside and on Bloody Friday January 31st 1919, the British Government was so fearful of a revolutionary uprising in Glasgow that tanks and soldiers were stationed in George Square.
During the 1920s and 1930s, as ship-building and other industrial pursuits came to be more profitable outwith the British Isles, Glasgow and Clydebank slowly decayed and fell into economic depression.
Scotland's location on the north-western periphery of Europe did not mean the country had a small part in the Second World War.
The shipyards and heavy engineering factories in Glasgow and Clydeside played a key role in the war effort, and soon became targets for the Luftwaffe.
The town of Clydebank in particular suffered great destruction and loss of life during the blitz.
The Highlands again provided a disproportionate number of troops for the war effort. Many thousands of Commandos and resistance fighters received training in the harsh conditions of the Lochaber mountains.
Scotland also had great strategic importance in the battle of the North Atlantic, as most trans-atlantic voyages involved negotiating the waters around the north-west of Scotland.
As in World War I, Scapa Flow in Orkney served as an important base for the Royal Navy.
Shetland's relative proximity to Norway, and its cultural links, resulted in the Shetland Bus — the name given to the fishing boats which helped many Norwegians flee the Nazis, and other expeditions to cross the North Sea to assist saboteurs.
Perhaps the most unusual wartime event within Scotland occurred in 1941 when Rudolf Hess flew to Renfrewshire in an attempt to broker a peace deal via the Duke of Hamilton, whom he had met at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
After World War II Scotland's economic situation became progressively worse until the 1970s, and only began to turn around after the discovery and development of North Sea oil and gas.
During this period the Scottish National Party refocused their arguments for Scottish independence around their "It's Scotland's Oil" campaign.
As the Cold War intensified the Holy Loch became internationally famous when in 1961 the U.S. depot ship USS Proteus brought Polaris ballistic missiles, submarines, and CND protesters to the Firth of Clyde.
A Royal Navy nuclear submarine base at nearby Faslane on the Gare Loch followed, and remains there armed with Trident missiles, but in 1992 the U.S. base closed down following the demise of the Soviet Union.
In 1997, the Blair Labour government of the United Kingdom held a referendum on the issue of devolution: the creation of national assemblies in each of the three nations of the UK besides England.
All three, including Scotland, voted in the affirmative, reversing parts of the three-hundred year old Union of the Parliaments. The new Scottish Parliament stands next to Holyrood House in Edinburgh.
Article is provided courtesy of Wikipedia.org and distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Click here for the Scotland360.com History of Scotland Index page.
 
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