Sheehan A Hard Local War

The British Army and the Guerrilla War in Cork 1919-1921
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7509-8748-6
Verlag: THP Ireland
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Following years of discontent over Home Rule and the Easter Rising, the deaths of two Royal Irish Constabulary policemen in Soloheadbeg at the hands of the IRA in 1919 signalled the outbreak of war in Ireland. The Irish War of Independence raged until a truce between the British Army and the IRA in 1921, historical consensus being that the conflict ended in military stalemate. In A Hard Local War, William Sheeham sets out to prove that no such stalemate existed, and that both sides were continually innovative and adaptive. Using new research and previously unpublished archive material, he traces the experience of the British rank and file, their opinion of their opponents, the special forces created to fight in the Irish countryside, RAF involvement and the evolution of IRA reliance on IEDs and terrorism.

WILLIAM SHEEHAN is a military historian and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy. He has lectured at NUI Maynooth and University College Cork, and is a member of its Ferguson Centre for African and Asian Studies at the Open University. His previously published works include, The FCA: An Illustrated History, British Voices from the Irish War of Independence and Hearts and Mines: The 5th Division, Ireland 1920-22. His research focuses mainly on British counterinsurgency in the Inter-War Period.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sheehan, William

Leseproben

Chapter One
Reprisals
Arguably the most emotive word used in the historiography of the War of Independence is ‘reprisal’. From 1919 to 1921, these ‘outrages’ formed a staple of Sinn Féin propaganda, as evidenced in the Irish Bulletin, and played a key part in their campaigns to garner sympathy through overseas press coverage. The reports of homes destroyed, women attacked and children terrorised were all carefully designed, packaged and presented to support the Republican cause. And while this discourse was designed with the specific political goals of the time in mind, it remains the most powerful and enduring understanding of these events in Ireland today. There can be no doubt that quite apart from any conflict with the IRA, significant street fighting did take place between civilians and soldiers in Cork city and county, and that British soldiers did engage in unofficial reprisals. Nevertheless, these events do not speak for themselves, and therefore need to be located and understood both within and in relation to the particulars of the period. This allows a more nuanced analysis of perhaps the most lasting view of these incidents, which is that unofficial reprisals were deliberately engineered and encouraged by both the British government and senior British officers, or, in a more damning interpretation led by the senior officers themselves. One can read the street fights which occurred all through this period as something of an unofficial war. They were fought outside the war per se, as they were not fought for the Crown or the Republic, but can be considered an almost primitive struggle for the possession of public space, and on occasion for the control of local women. The Origins of Reprisals
From the surviving papers of Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes-Hallett, then a junior officer in the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, comes a description of how the news broke of the attack on the Wesleyan Church party in September 1919. Then – one Sunday – while the main body of the Battalion was falling-in in front of the Church, after Church parade, a hatless soldier rushed up calling out that he had a message for the C.O. After been [sic] jumped on (!) by the R.S.M., he was fortunately seen by the C.O., who called him up. His story was that he was one of the Wesleyan Party, going to their chapel in Patrick Street, some ‘baker’s dozen’ strong. As they filed into the chapel door-way (he was last man in the file and a cross-country runner) a gang of locals, sitting lounging around – in ambush – on various walls, suddenly produced revolvers and ‘loaded’ staves from their sleeves, and opened-up on the backs of the troops at point blank range. The troops were carrying their rifles (for safety, just as was the custom in India), but no ammunition. One soldier (Pte Lloyd) was killed on the spot and the rest knocked down. Their assailants seized their rifles (13, I think) and drove off towards Cork.51 The private killed was in fact William Jones, a young Welshman from Carmarthenshire. Jones, only 20, was to have been discharged that week and was due to get married to his fiancée Gladys Thorpe the following week when he returned home.52 Such an IRA attack resulting in an army casualty was rare at this stage of the conflict, but the Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News offered an insight into why the IRA may have opened fire on the church parade rather than simply taking their rifles. It noted that the soldiers were attempting to fix bayonets just before they were fired on, thus implying a defensive element to the IRA’s shooting of these British troops.53 Whatever the reason, both Jones’ death and the failure of the Fermoy jury to deliver a murder verdict directly contributed to the reprisal carried out by the British troops. The loss of a comrade was the key link amongst many of the reprisals carried out in the Cork region, as the cases of Bandon and Cobh show. Bandon, a prosperous market town in West Cork was subjected to a reprisal by the Essex Regiment in July 1920, the catalyst being the killing of Lance Corporal Maddox while on intelligence duty. The anger of the soldiers was fuelled by their frustration at the fact that it was uncertain whether or not an inquest would be held into the killing.54 Cobh, on Cork Harbour, was soon to join Bandon and Fermoy in experiencing the anger of British troops, in this case the Cameron Highlanders. Following the death of Private Hall in an ambush, the Camerons decided to vent their frustration on the town, and on 27 August 1920, at about 10pm, some 20–30 Highlanders ‘entered the town armed with rifles and heavy pieces’ to exact retribution55. In nearly every case of serious violence, the reprisal was the direct consequence of the killing of a British serviceman in the immediate area. An exception to this was the reaction of British troops to the kidnapping of Brigadier-General Lucas. Lucas and two other officers, Colonel Tyrrell and Lieutenant-Colonel Danford, were staying in a fishing hut near Kilbarray, about seven miles from Fermoy. The officers were abducted on 26 June 1920 by IRA volunteers. While they were being driven away by their captors, the British officers planned their escape in the rear of the car by conversing in Urdu. However, the escape attempt failed, resulting in the serious wounding of Lieutenant-Colonel Danford. The IRA left Colonel Tyrrell behind with Danford, and the two officers made their way back to Fermoy, and word of the kidnap began to filter down to the troops in the various barracks in Fermoy. On the following night, soldiers were out socialising in Fermoy, some in the local cinema and others in the public houses, while some were boating on the river. However, between 11 and 11.30pm, as some of these men were on their way back to barracks, other troops left the barracks and entered the town. Soon hundreds of British troops from the Buffs, the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Air Force had taken to the streets. They ‘made their way to the town, singing, shouting and exclaiming, “We want our General”, “Give us our General” and proceeded to run amok along Pearse Square!’56 According to newspaper reports, The outbreak was on a much more extensive scale than those of September and November last, when considerable damage was done to property, and there can be no doubt that the present scene of destruction must have been carefully planned by a large number of soldiers, who were the principal participants in it.57 The Cork Examiner went on to state that it considered these events to be a military reprisal for the kidnapping of the General and that ‘it was a cruel and terrifying experience to which to subject inhabitants, who could have no participation in the kidnapping of Brigadier Lucas.’58 While the kidnapping of Lucas did not involve a fatality, it is possible that many of the soldiers involved in the reprisal may have believed that the General was dead or that he was about to be killed. When we examine the days on which the reprisal took place, one could suggest that the connection between soldiers drinking and unofficial reprisals was not confined to the case of Lucas. The Cameron Highlanders’ reprisal on Cobh was on a Friday night, the Essex sacked Bandon on a Thursday, both nights when as the weekend drew near drinking could be expected. The King’s Shropshire Light Infantry were moved to Victoria Barracks in Cork on 14 September in an effort to defuse local tensions in Fermoy and rebuild relations with the local community there. However, this was not an end to the problems; the tension transferred to Cork, and on the nights of 9 and 10 November, a weekend, soldiers from the regiment conducted running street battles with local civilians in Cork city. Hughes-Hallet recalled: Cork was not a happy station. There was soon trouble, started by Sinn Fein gangs cutting off the hair of girls seen to be chatting with soldiers, who naturally resented it. Entrenching-tool handles soon found their real use, up the sleeve, and heads were being cracked and opponents being pushed into the River.59 As this quote suggests, other issues besides fatalities had the potential to cause or exacerbate trouble. It was a confrontation over local women that provided the spark that ignited the street fighting on that November weekend. In the words of the Cork Examiner, On the night of 9 November 1919, a group of soldiers proceeding down from the barrack to King Street, behaving in an aggressive fashion, were booed and jeered by civilians. The soldiers broke through the police lines and the soldiers and members of the crowd were soon in handigrips [sic] and fighting took place at different points along the thoroughfare.60 However, that was not the end of the confrontation, and violence again erupted on the following night, when various groups of soldiers – mainly composed of the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry – who were apparently in a festive mood as they marched through MacCurtian Street, engaged in ‘some cheering and sing loyal songs’.61. Like fraternising with local women, this raucousness provided locals with an excuse to restart the fighting, and indeed it was probably the intention of the servicemen to provoke the locals to violence against which they could then defend themselves with impunity. No doubt this trouble would have continued the following night and, indeed, young local men gathered in MacCurtian Street in anticipation of...