The Second World War delayed the creation of this institution until 1945, when the Central African Council was established to promote coordination of policy and action between the territories.

Southern Rhodesia and the Northern Territories had very different traditions for the 'Native Question' (black Africans) and the roles they were designed to play in civil society.

He became one of the central architects and driving forces behind the creation of the Federation, often seemingly singlehandedly untangling deadlocks and outright walkouts on the part of the respective parties.

[9] The Commons approved the conferences' proposals on 24 March 1953, and in April passed motions in favour of federating the territories of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

Compounding this was the significant growth in Southern Rhodesia's European settler population (overwhelmingly British migrants), unlike in the Northern Protectorates.

[[16] The dominant role played by the Southern Rhodesian European population within the CAF is reflected in that played by its first leader, Sir Godfrey Huggins (created Viscount Malvern in February 1955), Prime Minister of the Federation for its first three years and, before that, Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia for an uninterrupted 23 years.

The position of Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia was once again, as under Britain's Ministerial Titles Act of 1933, reduced to a Premier and taken by The Rev.

However, after the Second World War, Britain opposed this because Southern Rhodesia would dominate the property and income franchise (which excluded the vast majority of Africans) owing to its much larger European population.

[[17] Huggins was thus the first prime minister from 1953 to 1956, and was followed by Sir Roy Welensky, a prominent Northern Rhodesian politician, from 1956 to the Federation's dissolution in December 1963.

But, for Huggins and the Rhodesian establishment, the central economic motive behind the CAF (or amalgamation) was the abundant copper deposits of Northern Rhodesia.

Unlike the Rhodesias, Nyasaland had no sizeable deposits of minerals and its tiny community of Europeans, largely Scottish, was relatively sympathetic to African aspirations.

While this troubled many whites, they continued to follow Huggins with the CAF's current structure, largely owing to the economic growth.

African dissent in the CAF grew, and at the same time British Government circles expressed objections to its structure and purpose – full Commonwealth membership leading to independence as a dominion.

Nearly two years later, Lord Malvern (as Sir Godfrey Huggins had become in February 1955) somehow obtained a copy of it and disclosed its contents to Welensky.

These events, for the first time, brought the attention of British Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, to a crisis emerging in the CAF, but apparently he did not fully comprehend the gravity of the situation, attributing the row to the old CO-CRO rivalry and to Welensky taking personal offence to the letter's contents.

The issues of this specific row were in the immediate sense resolved quietly with some constitutional amendments, but it is now known that Welensky was seriously considering contingencies for a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) for the federation, though he ended up opting against it.

While Kaunda was in jail, his loyal lieutenant Mainza Chona worked with other African nationalists to create the United National Independence Party (UNIP), a successor to ZANC.

In early 1959, unrest broke out in Nyasaland, which, according to historian Lord Blake, was "economically the poorest, politically the most advanced and numerically the least Europeanized of the three Territories."

The affair drew the whole concept of the federation into question and even Prime Minister Macmillan began to express misgivings about its political viability, although economically he felt it was sound.

A Royal Commission to advise Macmillan on the future of the CAF, to be led by The 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, QC, the former Paymaster General, was in the works.

The Commonwealth Secretary, The 14th Earl of Home, was sent to prepare Prime Minister Welensky, who was distinctly displeased about the arrival of the commission.

By contrast, Lord Home's rival, and fellow Scot, the Colonial Secretary, Iain Macleod, favoured African rights and dissolving the federation.

Belgium more hastily vacated its colony and thousands of European refugees fled the Belgian Congo from the brutalities of the civil war and into Southern Rhodesia.

[25] The new Commonwealth Secretary, Duncan Sandys, negotiated the '1961 Constitution', a new constitution for the CAF which greatly reduced Britain's powers over it: however, by 1962, the British and the CAF cabinet had agreed that Nyasaland should be allowed to secede, though Southern Rhodesian Premier Sir Edgar Whitehead committed the British to keep this secret until after the 1962 elections in the territory.

On 5 June 1963, the leaders of Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda expressed their intention to unite as the federation of East Africa.

Southern Rhodesia obtained the vast majority of these including the assets of the Federal army, to which it had overwhelmingly contributed.

On 11 November 1965, Southern Rhodesia's government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, proclaimed a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom.

The British influenced and affiliated federation and its institutions and racial relations differed from the only other regional power, the Union of South Africa.

The dissolution of the CAF highlighted the discrepancy between the independent African-led nations of Zambia and Malawi, and Southern Rhodesia (which remained ruled by a White minority government until the Internal Settlement in 1978).

[29] Following Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), a growing conflict emerged between two of the former CAF territories – Zambia (supporting African nationalist and Marxist guerrillas) and Southern Rhodesia (supported by South Africa and Portugal until 1974) – with much heated diplomatic rhetoric, and, at times, outright military hostility.