The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (125 page)

All over Europe the hardened dregs of disbanded armies were distorting postwar politics—in Germany the former Corporal Hitler was organizing veterans into
Ordnertruppe,
or strong-arm squads—and eight thousand British survivors of the trenches were now set loose in Eire. In his diary Wilson called this “a panic measure,” predicting that “raising 8000 scallawags” would “give us no military value but great anxieties.” But he did not know the worst. He assumed that they, like the RIC, would serve as policemen. Instead, they were trained to use IRA methods against the IRA, which, in practice, meant against the people of southern Ireland. Churchill wrote Lloyd George: “I am prepared to support and to defend in Parliament a policy of reprisals within strict limits and under strict control in certain districts in which it should be declared that conditions approximating a state of war exist. I believe that such a policy would be less discreditable and more effective than what is going on.” He went farther. The Tans, he argued, should not be disciplined for excesses: “I cannot feel it right to punish the troops when, goaded in the most brutal manner and finding no redress, they take action on their own account.” It was becoming increasingly difficult to pin George down on the Irish question—one day he would speak of the need to “hunt down” the killers and the next of hopes for “lasting reconciliation”—but he supported Winston’s Tans publicly, declaring: “We have murder by the throat… we had to reorganize the police, and when the Government was ready we struck the terrorists and now the terrorists are complaining of terror.”
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But others were complaining, too. Greenwood, the Westmoreland of his day, told the press that the countryside was being pacified by the Tans, and that they were innocent of atrocities. That was untrue. The extent of their guilt is unclear; self-serving claims were made by both sides. Robert Rhodes James writes that “no doubt their record has been excessively besmirched,” yet adds: “After every allowance has been made, theirs is a record of squalor that was, unhappily, not without precedent, but which increasingly nauseated civilized opinion in Britain and abroad.” One notorious incident was the razing of Cork on December 11, 1920. Greenwood denied that the Tans had started the fire. Nevertheless, the cabinet authorized an investigation and then suppressed the subsequent report on the ground that “the effects of publishing” it “would be disastrous to the Government’s whole policy in Ireland.” In 1974 Henry Pelling wrote that the savagery of the fighting between the Sinn Féin and the Tans “is still a bitter memory.”
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After Cork critics arose on all sides. The Labour party’s Commission on Ireland charged: “Things are being done in the name of Britain which make her name stink in the nostrils of the world.” Sir Henry Wilson noted: “I told Winston that I thought this a scandal & Winston was very angry. He said these ‘Black & Tans’ were honourable & gallant officers, etc., etc. & talked much nonsense…. It is an amazing & scandalous thing.” Later he wrote: “At Balbriggan, Thurles & Galway yesterday the local police marked down certain SFs as in their opinion actual murderers or instigators & then coolly went & shot them without question or trial. Winston saw very little harm in this but it horrifies me.” Austen Chamberlain asked for reassurance that the law-enforcement officers were not proceeding “without control.” Greenwood was instructed “to endeavour to limit reprisals,” but a majority of the cabinet approved a resolution “that it would be a mistake for the Government to take the initiative in any suspension of military activities in Ireland, and that the present policy in that country should be pursued.” In public, Churchill weakly argued that the Tans merely enjoyed “the same freedom as the Chicago or New York police in dealing with armed gangs.” After martial law had been declared in the counties of Kilkenny, Limerick, Kerry, and Cork he wrote an archbishop who had protested, that the government had had no choice because “no body is in corporate and continuous existence which has the power or even the constitutional right to speak for Ireland,” that both “well-meaning individuals” and “the Irish people” were “paralysed by the terroristic action of a violent and desperate body of men,” and, the ultimate reason: “Britain will never consent, while life and strength remain, to the destruction of the integrity of the British Empire. Was it not [Thomas Colley] Grattan who said ‘The Channel forbids union; the ocean forbids separation’?”
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Privately, however, his view was changing. The Tans had been given a free hand and nothing had been accomplished. England and Eire were farther apart than ever. Churchill the warrior was being transformed into Churchill the peacemaker. On November 3, 1920, he told the cabinet: “I do not consider that the present Government attitude on reprisals can be maintained much longer. It is not fair on the troops, it is not fair on the officers who command them.” In a subsequent meeting the question of an armistice was raised. Thomas Jones, first assistant secretary (later deputy secretary) to the cabinet, noted: “All through the recent discussions of the Irish problem the most irreconcilable Minister has been Balfour. Churchill has frankly acknowledged the failure of force.” Strongly supported by Churchill, Lloyd George approved of a truce offer, and the Sinn Féin accepted a respite in the killing. The quixotic Sir Henry Wilson was indignant. He had changed course 180 degrees. In his diary he wrote: “So the murderers have won & the coward L.G. has gone down on his knees, & all his miserable Cabinet on their hunkers behind him.”
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Churchill had transferred his faith to a new Home Rule bill which he and Birkenhead had steered through Parliament. On December 23, 1920, the Government of Ireland Act became law, dividing Ireland into two states, the twenty-six counties of Eire and the six counties of Ulster, each of which would elect its own legislature. Eire’s powers were to be greater than those provided in the 1914 bill, but defense, foreign affairs, and customs would remain in British hands. Winston, ever striving to unify the House, acclaimed the act as a “gift,” not of one English political party, but “the achievement of a coalition.” He considered it a turning point. So did the Orangemen. Eire did not. Southern Ireland went to the polls in May 1921, and of the 128 legislative candidates elected, 124 belonged to the Sinn Féin. They met in June, swore never to accept partition of Ireland, took a republican oath, elected De Valera president, and then voted themselves out of office. At this point a deus ex machina appeared in the form of George V. Opening Belfast’s new parliament on June 22, the King appealed for an end to fratricidal strife. His sovereign’s initiative forced Lloyd George to send De Valera a message via courier, suggesting negotiations. The leader of the Sinn Féin replied that they could meet only if it were agreed in advance that he, as a “President,” was senior to Lloyd George, who was only a “Prime Minister.” George indignantly refused, thereby dropping into De Valera’s trap. The truce broke down and the killing resumed. Eire’s people were weary, however. Even IRA members demanded an end to the bloodshed. The Tans had thinned the ranks of their battalions, and the survivors begged for at least a glimmer of relief. When Lloyd George offered again in October to negotiate, therefore, De Valera yielded slightly. The message had invited him to discuss how “the British Empire can be best reconciled with Irish National aspirations.” He answered: “The Irish Republic would be glad to discuss this question with the Community of Nations known as the British Empire.” Himself would never go to London, but he agreed to send his two most trusted lieutenants, Arthur Griffith, founder of the Sinn Féin, and Michael Collins, until then known in England only as a notorious IRA gunman.
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Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith, July 1921

C
hurchill also yielded a little. Speaking in Dundee on September 24, he said that the establishment of “a separate foreign Republic in Ireland” was out of the question; it would bring “certain war—real war, not mere bushranging” between Eire and England, which would mean that “every Irishman in the British Empire would become an alien enemy, and would be in exactly the same position as the unfortunate Germans who were in this country during the Great War.” The threat of Armageddon was his stick. His carrot was something Eire had never been offered before: partial dominion status, putting Eire almost on a par with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Britain, he said, could do no more. The Irish delegates must realize that. “Squander this conference,” he said, “and peace is bankrupt.”
The Times
commented: “The country will be grateful to
MR CHURCHILL
for the breadth and lucidity of his speech… whether men agree with him or not,
MR CHURCHILL
’s able and calm review of the situation helps to restore confidence.”
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On the morning of October 11, Collins and Griffith were cordially welcomed at No. 10 and introduced to the cabinet across an unusually wide table—Lloyd George had anticipated that some of his ministers would refuse to shake hands with men they regarded as murderers. Churchill did not share that view. He knew the Irish delegates were brave men, and to him courage was admirable in itself. Collins in particular attracted him. He and Winston were, in fact, alike in many ways: fearless, charismatic, fiercely patriotic, ready to sacrifice everything for principle. Both had cherubic features but bulldog expressions, and they shared a ready wit. “Winston and Michael Collins appear to fascinate each other and are bosom friends,” wrote the amazed Stanley Salvidge. Their friendship grew; after a day of exhausting deliberations, Winston would take his recent enemy home and sit up late, talking, arguing, drinking, even singing. Later he recalled one evening when Lloyd George and Griffith were also there. “It was at a crisis,” he wrote, “and the negotiations seemed to hang only by a thread. Griffith went upstairs to parley with Mr Lloyd George alone. Lord Birkinhead and I were left with Michael Collins meanwhile. He was in his most difficult mood, full of reproaches and defiances, and it was very easy for everyone to lose his temper. ‘You hunted me day and night!’ he exclaimed. ‘You put a price on my head!’ ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘You are not the only one.’ And I took from my wall the framed copy of the reward offered for my recapture by the Boers. ‘At any rate it was a good price—£5,000. Look at me—£25 dead or alive. How would you like that?’ ” Another time he slyly produced a thumbnail appraisal of himself which Collins had written: “Will sacrifice all for political gain…. Inclined to be bombastic. Full of ex-officer jingo or similar outlook. Don’t actually trust him.” There was a moment of silence; then both men burst into laughter.
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Michael Collins, 1922

Collins trusted him now, but it was Churchillian charm which kept them together, for Winston had no intention of giving much more ground. He still believed that eventually “Ulster will join herself with Southern Ireland… the national unity of Ireland within the British Empire will be attained,” and he would make no concession which might jeopardize that dream, although, of course, he could not repeal the 1920 act. England, he insisted, must keep its two naval bases in the south, at Queenstown and Berehaven. Eire would be permitted no navy. Neither could it remain neutral in any future war: “The position of absolute neutrality would have been a great difficulty to Britain in the late war. We could not have used your ports as bases from which to defend ourselves against submarine attack.” All men elected to Eire’s parliament must take an oath to the King. He told Collins, and then the House: “We do not recognize the Irish Republic.” Instead, southern Ireland would be known as the Irish Free State, or, in Gaelic, Saorstát Eireann. The Crown would be represented by an officer “to be appointed in like manner as the Governor General of Canada,” and the Free State would assume responsibility for a share of Britain’s national debt. Collins and Griffith won some points—Eire could raise an army and arm vessels to protect Irish fishermen—but they were few. Nevertheless, the Irishmen signed the treaty in the first week of December. Churchill had warned them that if they didn’t, England would invade Eire, and Lloyd George had backed him up. Both sides were taking risks. As he put down his pen, Birkenhead said: “I may have signed my political death warrant tonight.” But for once F.E. did not have the last word. Collins said softly: “I may have signed my actual death warrant.” There was a long moment of silence. They realized that he had meant it. To ease Collins’s reception in Dublin, Churchill raised a sensitive issue with the cabinet the following morning. He pointed out that several Sinn Féiners had been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. “Winston,” Jones noted, “suggested that the Irish should be informed privately that the extreme sentence will not be carried out.” It was approved; officials were instructed to quietly assure “prisoners now lying under sentence of death that the death penalty will not be enforced.”
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