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Editor says, what if Britain had stayed out of the Great War? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1915, on this day Militia Major Michael Collins (pictured) was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallant actions in the defeat of the Ulster Volunteers in Derry.
Irish Home Rule in 1914: Part #1"The troubles" had begun in the difficult months before Irish Home Rule began on schedule in September 1914. Even the choice of location for the bicameral Irish Parliament in Dublin was in dispute. Unionists argued that the fast-growing city of Belfast also deserved of an assembly, having seen a population expansion from 20,000 in 1800 through to a twenty-fold increase to 400,000 by the turn of the twentieth century. Few argued that Cork, on the West Coast, deserved an assembly. And many held the view that the disproportional rise of Belfast was merely a lop-sided indication of the British Government's investment in the Protestant population.
The late summer of 1914 revealed other truths about the British Government's narrow pursuit of its "national interest". Because as the continent of Europe stumbled towards conflict, the German ambassador published details of the secret staff talks which proved that the UK was committed to war regardless of what the Germans did or did not do in Belgium. Although democratic processes had not fully played out towards a consensual decision, it was generally considered probable that the Imperial Parliament would agree to declare war on Germany, and suspend Irish Home Rule for the duration of the war. But as matters transpired, Britain declared partial neutrality by blocking the English Channel as a matter of honour, a small reciprocation given that the French Fleet had already sailed to the Mediterranean on the private assurance that their coast was secured by the Royal Navy. This was a worthless compensation from "perfidious Albion"; deprived of the British Expeditionary Force, the French Army was hammered into defeat before Christmas.
Of course a British Expeditionary Force did set sail during the Autumn of 1914, but to the North of Ireland. Ever since the Curragh Mutiny the British Army had been fully aware of the reluctance of its officers to put down a "loyalist" uprising. Which was why the actions of individuals such as "the Big Man" Mick Collins were so vital to the success of devolved power in Ireland.
This article is a post from the Irish Home Rule 1914 collaborative thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Irish Home Rule 1914 Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ireland, Britain, Irish, Michael Collins, Big Mick. Editor says, in authoring this article we explore a central idea from Scott Palter with valuable assists from Jackie Rose. We have also repurposed content from Wikipedia.
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~ This could have changed everything, and not just for Britain...
~ While Britannia's sons with their long-range guns sailed in through the foggy dew...
~ So Michael Collins is fighting on behalf of the English government on the side of the Irish republicans against Ulster Loyalists? Talk about the world being turned upside down, this could have been more confusing than the War of the Roses...
~ The officers would have all resigned their commissions rather than take action against the Ulster Volunteers.
Michael Collins was a member of the IRB and working in a stockbroker's office in the City at the time.
There was no way nthe Irish Volunteers were going to be allowed to fight with the British army.
There is a reason for this that bI hadn't ever realised until I read Jim Beall's Lettersime and went and checked.
Key members of the Conservative party were key Irish (NOT ULSTER) Unionists or heir ardent supporters and simply would not have toleated it.
Carson was the leader of the Ulster Unionists and and a senior Conservative,mBonar Law the Conservative leader was a violent Unionist ans was Arthur Balfour, who had been secretary for Ireland.
The numbers of Cons. and Liberals were almost equally, the Irish Nat. and Labour holding the balance.
Relly Britain needed the war to get out of Irish Home Rule and suspend the Home Rule Act,mas has been said.
I appreciate this is very highly attractive to people of an Irish background.
The publishing of the super secret Military Conventions and military agreements which weren't supposed to exist with France would have cause uproar, but you would have needed another ambassador than the violently pro-Britsh Lichnowsky. But the Liberal Imperialists - Asquith, Haldane and grey - are committed to war come what may.
It is likjely the Liberal cabinet would collapse, - in fact without the actual war crisis it almost certainly would - as it nearly did on 1st -"The Millstone 's chapters on-line referring to this.
Parliament does not need to declare war, the decision had been taken by the cabinet on the 2nd. It only needed to endorse the decision, vital for national unity.
~ What does Germany do with the defeated France? Seize many of its colonies in hopes of expanding its empire? If so, we might see an Anglo-German War anyway in disputes over Africa.
~ An Irish friend told me that IRA men played a key role in the Israeli War of Independence...since they would, after all, go anywhere at any time to fight the British. The King David Hotel bombing does seem like a typical IRA operation, complete with the warning phone call.
Even if the IRA did not inspire the Israelis, it certainly did enough for literature, thanks to its unpaid press agents like Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, Behan and Higgins. In particular, Yeats immortalized the uprising at the Dublin General Post Office with "Easter 1916." It calls on everyone to "Come gather round me players all, come praise 1916" and ends with the unforgettable words, "They are changed, changed utterly...a terrible beauty is born."
~ No matter how much we may sympathise with this, the British Ruling Class are not going to do the decent thing to Ireland in1914.
Also they are not going to avoid war - they will go to war to prevent the Balance of Poer being changed in Europe and not over French colonies etc.
~ There is a small chance, that Ulster does something really really, stupid. Carson, flirted with making statements about inviting the Kaiser in. Suppose Carson is in a car accident, make it the weekend he met the Kaiser, by accident on the continent. Let rumor abound Suppose the Larne gun running, ends up with a clash with the Police. . Collins was both a member of the Irish volunteers, and the IRB. Most Irish revolutionaries were. Collins is not that important in the movement at this point, so one can see him drifting towards action.l However at this point the volunteers are still dominated by the Irish parlimentary party There was a london unit of the volunteers. Which did fight in the East rising So presuming Ulster acts and than a curragh muntiny occurs. Low odds, but possible. British have had their hand forced. That said, its still unlikely Collins, accepts a VC. However the war in the North may have changed him. In otl, he became less anti clerical as he got older. Here he may be more of a redmondite. In this time line. Redmond wins the war
.
~ One further point, Irish volunteers, were quietly buying guns from france and belgium at this point. So, if the French are pissed
~ Ulyanov and Hitler die in obscurity, Dzugashvili is captured while robbing a bank and shot...A generation of Frenchmen would have spat every time Germany was mentioned who would otherwise have pushed up poppies and the demographics and psychology of France and Britain in the 1930s and 1940s would be radically different. I've often thought that the 20th century would have been a happier place if the Miracle of the Marne, wasn't. The carnage over the century would likely have been much, much less.
~ You are up against the British Ruling Class - one of the most ruthless and skilled bunch of operators on the planet.
Carson is an important member of the Conswevative Party, and the violently anti-Home Rule Bonar law and Arthur Balfour are its leaders.
The Liberal Imperialist liberals nned them for the war and if the secret military conventios have been published likely to be in coalition with them.
Remember Redmond promised the Volunteers to defend Ireland and held a grand parade.
There is no way the Conservatives will act against Ulster neither will british officers march against it.
If B L and A B are in a Coalition in which the Liberal Imperilaiists are in a minority they will be intolerant of the Irish Volunteers and Home Rule.
~ Or, Paul, if the Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated at Sarajevo. That might also have prevented WWI and therefore the Russian Revolution and WWII.
~ "Ulyanov and Hitler die in obscurity, Dzugashvili is captured while robbing a bank and shot...A generation of Frenchmen would have spat every time Germany was mentioned who would otherwise have pushed up poppies and the demographics and psychology of France and Britain in the 1930s and 1940s would be radically different. I've often thought that the 20th century would have been a happier place if the Miracle of the Marne, wasn't. The carnage over the century would likely have been much, much less."
I entirely agree, Sir. Also britain would have beem a much more prosperous place and not gone into economic decline and there would have been no "lost generation".
But unfortunately Franz ferdinan's assassination was not by a small group of fantatics or an accident, as most assassinations are not, it was fixed and how far the fixing went is open to debate. How far were Russian military intelligence involved?
~ This just in: Martin McGuinness, head of Sinn Fein, is going to meet with Queen Elizabeth in Berlin, with his organization's full consent. Sometimes truth is even stranger than OUR fiction!
~ By 1914, some form of Home Rule was on the way, one way or another. If the Ulstermen had been allowed to opt out, as should have been done (what do the Republicans WANT with a million or so people that want no part of their new state, anyway?) the whole thing could have been handled, but WWI came along and that was when everybody became stupid
~ Eric, I think it has to be asked How sincere was the Liberal government? Did they intend it to become deadlockedall along? Much of the Liberal party membership believed in it, The numbers of NP's of the Liberlas and tories were identical in numbers, with the balancebeing dtermined by the Irish Nationalists and Labour. This appears to have been the reson for the disasterous decision not to exclude Ulster.
August 24
Editor says, what if Britain had stayed out of the Great War? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1913, on this day the leader of the Irish Unionist Alliance and Ulster Unionist Party Sir Edward Carson (pictured) was killed in a vehicle accident at Homburg in the German province of Hessee Nassau just hours after lunching at the famous mineral springs with the German Kaiser.
Irish Home Rule in 1914: Part #2The following week the Belfast Evening Telegraph revealed shocking details of the private discussions which were independently confirmed in the The Irish Churchman. Most damning of all was Carson's breath-taking statement that "It may not be known to the rank and file of Unionists that we have the offer of aid from a powerful Continental monarch who, if Home Rule is forced on the Protestants of Ireland, is prepared to send an army sufficient to release England from any further trouble in Ireland".
For six months after his death, rumours would abound until finally the police intercepted a major gun smuggling operation in Larne, Donaghadee, and Bangor. It soon transpired that five arms manufacturers including the Austrian Steyr and the German Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken had delivered twenty-five thousand rifles and three million rounds of ammunition from Germany.
The following day news of the Larne Gun Running fiasco reached the London Chapter of the Irish Volunteers. One prominent member - Michael Collins - had also been inducted into the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was working at a stockbroker's office in the City at the time, but decided to immediately resign his position and return to Ireland. Quickly promoted to the rank of Militia Major he would soon emerge as a powerful commander in the forthcoming conflict with the Ulster Volunteers in Derry.
And even as the British Cabinet argued over participation in a general european conflict, unmistakeable signs of a civil war began to appear in Ireland. Because in late July, the Irish Volunteers took delivery of nine hundred Mauser M1871 11 mm calibre single shot rifles and twenty-nine thousand rounds of its black powder ammunition. The architects of this Howth gun-running scheme had convinced German arms dealers that the weapons were destined for revolutionary Mexico. Foremost in that group was Sir Roger Casement who would also play a major part in shaping the tragic events that followed hard on the heels of the opening of the bicameral Irish Parliament.
This article is a post from the Irish Home Rule 1914 collaborative thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Irish Home Rule 1914 Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ireland, Britain, Irish, Edward Carson, Kaiser. Editor says, in authoring this article we explore a suggestion from Ruairi James Heekin with valuable assists from Jackie Rose. We have also repurposed content from Wikipedia.
~ In fact, Roger Casement WAS ready to receive weapons from Germany This led to the British hanging him, thus showing their great talent for manufacturing martyrs. Yeats made this one even more immortal by writing "The Ghost of Roger Casement is Knocking at the Door."
~ 1913? Yes, a year before Home Rule
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~ I think myself that the British government wouldn't have been able to force Home (Dublin) rule on Ulster.
March 6
Editor says, what if Britain had stayed out of the Great War? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1918, on this day the Lord Chancellor of Ireland John Edward Redmond (pictured) died from heart failure hours after undergoing an operation to remove an intestinal obstruction. A moderate, constitutional and conciliatory politician he attained the twin dominant objectives of his political life, party unity and the granting of an interim form of self-government to Ireland.
Irish Home Rule in 1914: Part #3He served in the Imperial Parliament for eighteen years being chosen as John Stuart Parnell's ultimate successor in order to lead the re-unified Irish Parliamentary Party. In the second election of December 1910 this parliamentary party held the balance of power at Westminster, which marked a high point in Redmond's political career. His deal over the budget crisis of 1909 led to the curbing of the power of the House of Lords. With the Lords' veto abolished under the Parliament Act 1911, Irish Home Rule (which the Lords blocked in 1894) became a reality. Redmond used his leverage to persuade the Liberal government of H. H. Asquith to introduced the Third Home Rule Bill in April 1912, to grant Ireland national self-government. This could no longer be blocked by the Lords, its enactment merely delayed for two years. Home Rule had reached the pinnacle of its success and Redmond had gone much further than any of his predecessors in shaping British politics to the needs of the Irish.
For all its reservations, the Bill was for Redmond the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. "If I may say so reverently", he told the House of Commons, "I personally thank God that I have lived to see this day". Unfortunately, Asquith missed a magnificent opportunity by failing to incorporate into the Bill any significant concessions to Ulster Unionists, who then campaigned relentlessly against it. Nonetheless by 1914 Redmond had become a nationalist hero of Parnellite stature and could have had every expectation of becoming head of a new Irish government in Dublin.
But by the time that Redmond transferred to the Irish Bicameral Parliament, "the troubles" had begun in earnest and the Great Powers excluding Britain were locked in a general conflict. Denied British support, the French Armies were hammered into early defeat and during the de-mobilization that followed, many of their weapons were secretly transported to Ireland.
This article is a post from the Irish Home Rule 1914 collaborative thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Irish Home Rule 1914 Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ireland, Britain, Irish, John Redmond, Irish Parliament. Editor says, in authoring this article we repurpose content from Wikipedia.
~ Whilst not being unsympethetic,there is no way the the clear-sighted geostrategist policymakers who ran the British Empire were going to allow Britain's none-involvement in WW1 and aiding France.
Particularly not the Liberal Imperialists - grey, Asquith and haldane, who ran the Liberal government.
~ Apparently "the Troubles" were going to happen, one way or another.
~ To paraphrase some of Napoleon's advice on ruling: give a little and people demand more. Instigators are always out there.
April 20
Editor says, what if Britain had stayed out of the Great War? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the July 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1916, on this day the hard core Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) attempted to seize strongpoints in Dublin City Centre as the precursor to the formation of a Provisional Government of the Irish Republic. But they only succeed in occupying the General Post Office (GPO) where they ceremoniously hoist the flag of the thirty-two county Irish Republic (pictured) as a Sovereign Independent State.
Irish Home Rule in 1914: Part #4Holed up inside were Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Dermott and Joseph Plunkett. When Pearsae read a Proclamation of the Republic1 to the bemused and disinterested Dubliners on Sackville Street2, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland John Redmond responded in a measured way by mobilizing the small Irish Citizen Army formed by James Connolly as an emergency militia to starve them out.
After their detention was complete, one of the commanders, American-born Éamonn de Valera was given passage to Boston. At least for now, Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom under Home Rule. And the future of an Irish Free State would be nurtured by the Clann na Gael in Boston, that great bastion of Republicanism.
This article concludes the Irish Home Rule 1914 collaborative thread.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Irish Home Rule 1914 Source: Wikipedia Labels: Easter Uprising, Britain, Irish, John Redmond, De Valera. Editor says, in authoring this article we explore a central idea from Scott Palter with valuable assists from Jackie Rose and corrections from Ruairi James Heekin. We have also repurposed content from Wikipedia. Canadian journalist and writer Frederick Arthur McKenzie wrote that in poorer areas, "there was a vast amount of sympathy with the rebels, particularly after the rebels were defeated". Thomas Johnson, the Labour leader thought there was, "no sign of sympathy for the rebels, but general admiration for their courage and strategy". The aftermath of the Rising, and in particular the British reaction to it, helped to sway a large section of Irish nationalist opinion away from hostility or ambivalence and towards support for the rebels of Easter 1916. Dublin businessman and Quaker, James Douglas, for example, hitherto a Home Ruler, wrote that his political outlook changed radically during the course of the Rising due to the British military occupation of the city and that he became convinced that parliamentary methods would not be sufficient to remove the British presence.
1) In OTL, renamed O'Connell Street.
2) Also in OTL, all seven signatories were subsequently executed, along with the fifteen leaders of the coup. De Valera was the only surviving Commander. His life was spared only because of his foreign birth.
~ And we must remember that those old boys had a "secret weapon"...in the form of the great Irish authors volunteering as their press agents, most notably William Butler Yeats...
"Come gather round me, players all, come praise 1916..."
~ It would be the Citizen Army. Edit applied Connolly, was co-opted, onto the IRB Edit applied. As they were worried about him acting alone.
The numbers, would be much smaller. They would also be more poorly armed, and 500 at the most? Its not impossible that there are disaffected people from the Ulster war. On the other hand, Redmond is in a much stronger position than Birrell, the chief sec of Ireland. He can probably order the DMP to do arrests. Also Dev, if he joins, probably does not get extradited to Boston. Firstly there is evidence, his American citizenship became important, only after the first executions had occurred Edit applied Also, the Crown contented themselves with shooting signatories. They spared rebel leaders outside of Dublin. As far, as America is concerned, there is no WW1. Ireland has home rule, rather more as Redmond, is actually using the milita. Has he for example sent an envoy to the pope, or toured America in the mean time? .Things have changed. The Irish have seen the elephant. The redmonmite wing is stronger. Perversely that might make Connolly more desperate
~ Perhaps the empire would consider joining the continental war, if only to draft a few of the Irish Republicans and throw them into the grinder...
~ Using the Irish to fight the Irish had been much of England's plan for the last 700 years, so why not here, too? Arming them is an interesting step in modern times, though certainly plenty of precedent, even setting up rival clubs such as the Orange Order. It'd be a new degree of trust and support from London, which if there were much of that in the first place, there wouldn't have been so much need to fight for independence.
~ Not making them martyrs would take a lot of the impetus out of the Republican movement.
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