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An All-Red Route was, originally, a steamship route used by Royal Mail Steamers during the heyday of the British Empire.

Initially the term was used to apply only to steamship routes (as these were the only practical way of carrying communications between Great Britain and the rest of the Empire), particularly to India via the Suez Canal - a route sometimes referred to as the British Imperial Lifeline^[1]. Rail transport was used across France and Italy to the Mediterranean. From 1868 to 1871 the Mont Cenis Pass Railway, a temporary mountain railway line over the Mont Cenis Pass was used for mail.

In the 1880s the term "All-Red Route" was expanded to include the telegraph network (see All Red Line) that connected various parts of the Empire, and by the 1920s it was also being used in reference to proposed air routes, initially airship and then flying boat, between Great Britain and the rest of the Empire, see Imperial Airship Scheme.

The Suez Canal route dramatically shortened the sea path between Britain and her colonies in Asia, and, conscious of its significance, the British eventually sent its own troops to protect the waterway as part of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936;^[2] After Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the canal in 1956, sparking the Suez Crisis, UK Prime Minister Anthony Eden declared that "The Egyptian has his thumb on our windpipe",^[3] describing the Suez as the "great imperial lifeline".^[4]

The major "All-Red Route" ran as follows:

Southern England → Gibraltar → Malta → Alexandria in Egypt (for the Suez Canal) → India (also Burma, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya), as well as Australia, New Zealand, and British colonies in the South Pacific.

With the end of the British Empire and the increasing prevalence of air travel, the terms "All-Red Route" and "British Imperial Lifeline" have fallen from use, and now exist largely in a historical context, generally in reference to the routes in use during the British Empire.

See also

• Imperial Airship Scheme
• Imperial Airways

References

Bibliography

• Reese, Trevor (1973). The All-Red Routes (The British Empire). London (UK).  
• Ayoob, Mohammed (1980). Conflict and Intervention in the Third World. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780709900634.  
• Herring, George C. (2008). From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195078220.  
• Holland, Matthew F. (1996). America and Egypt: from Roosevelt to Eisenhower. Greenwood. ISBN 9780275954741.  
• Hopwood, Derek (1991). Egypt: Politics and Society 1945-1990. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780003020281.  
• Varble, Derek (2003). The Suez Crisis 1956: Essential Histories. Osprey. ISBN 9781841764184.