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—Mao Zedong 4 страница
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leaders could not guarantee success, especially as it would have to rely upon that ‘demoralised civil service and police’. He knew that the British intelligence and governance problems went much deeper, and he felt that an alternative should be made available.
To achieve that end, Fisher installed a new ‘team’ in Dublin Castle, led by Sir John Anderson, widely regarded as the most talented administrator of the day. 120 Reporting to Anderson were Sir Alfred (Andy) Cope121 and Mark Sturgis. 122 Fisher proposed many changes and thought that over time his policy and personnel alternatives would eventually culminate in negotiations with Sinn Fé in, and if and when that happened he intended that the Dublin Castle administration should be ready. Cope was described as ‘Lloyd George’s special agent, charged with informally exploring avenues of settlement with Sinn Fé in’. 123 The three men often acted without the sanction of Hamar Greenwood, their ministerial superior. In fact, their brief was a secret and confidential attempt by the British government to find someone in Sinn Fé in with whom they could negotiate. Since the trio favoured conciliation and negotiations leading to Dominion Home Rule, Fisher and Lloyd George had shrewdly left open the option of an eventual compromise peace.
Towards the end of 1920 the British were wearing down the Irish militarily, though the British did not know it. Bloody Sunday, the Kilmichael ambush and other Irish successes obscured the fact that the Irish were desperately short of ammunition and that the British had captured or killed many of their leaders. As the war continued into 1921 those shortages of arms and men became acute across the country. Cooler and more realistic heads on both sides began to see the benefits of a political peace.
Long before Collins went to London in October 1921 to participate in the Treaty negotiations he was involved in responding to the peace feelers extended by the British. 124 Dr Robert Farnan, a prominent gynaecologist who lived at 5 Merrion Square, was attending the wives of two Auxiliaries at the time, and he attributed the fact that his house was never raided or searched to respect for his medical practice. At Prime Minister Lloyd George’s behest, Archbishop Patrick Joseph Clune of Perth, Western Australia, met Collins there on 7 December 1920 to discuss early British peace overtures. (Archbishop Clune was an uncle of Conor Clune, who had just been tortured and killed on Bloody Sunday in November. ) It was
at this time that the British were showing the first signs of negotiating in earnest. Lloyd George began to send out feelers for talks, but he did so in a fashion calculated to produce the maximum amount of distrust and obstinacy on the part of the Irish.
Archbishop Clune, born on 6 January 1864 in Ruan, Co. Clare, was first asked to mediate on behalf of his native land by the Hon. Lord Morris,
T. P. O’Connor MP and Joe Devlin MP at a luncheon in London on 30 November. That night there were severe Black and Tan reprisals at Lahinch, Co. Clare, with several people killed and many homes burned. Lloyd George condemned all reprisals and asked the archbishop to go to Dublin, interview the Sinn Fé in leaders, attempt to arrange a temporary truce and prepare an atmosphere for negotiations. These negotiations were opposed by General Nevil Macready but favoured by much of the British Cabinet and government. 125 Lloyd George could not guarantee the safety of the archbishop, however, and would not consent to a safe conduct for the Sinn Fé in leaders. In order to remain incognito, Archbishop Clune travelled to Ireland on the mailboat as ‘Revd Dr Walsh’. On arrival in Dublin on 6 December, he first stayed at All Hallows College, Drumcondra.
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Joe O’Reilly, Collins’s prime messenger, was assigned to bring the archbishop to Collins:
My [O’Reilly’s] next meeting with Dr Clune was the evening of the next day, Monday, 6th December, 1920, when about eight in the evening I called at the Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street, met Dr Clune, and told him of the time and place where he would meet Michael Collins the next day. I again warned him to be very careful on leaving for the appointment, and to show no surprise if the driver of the car that I would send took a roundabout way. His Grace took me aside and expressed his uneasiness at the prospect of being followed by Dublin Castle. He then said to me: ‘I will go to Dublin Castle and see if my movements have been watched. It would be better to drop the negotiations than risk the capture of Michael Collins’.
On 7 December, accompanied by Dr Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, Clune was driven to Farnan’s home to meet Collins.
The next day, Tuesday, 7th December, Dr Clune, accompanied by Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, set out from All Hallows College, Drumcondra, for the first interview with Michael Collins. They were driving quite a time, not noticing where they were, too interested in their chat, when Dr Clune looked out as the car drew up before one of the fine residences in Merrion Square, a most unlikely hide-out for a man with a price on his head. The driver knocked at the hall-door and the two bishops were shown into the consulting room of Dr Robert Farnan, one of Dublin’s leading gynaecologists. I called upon Dr Farnan in October 1935, and he told me that Dr Clune and ‘Mick’ Collins met in his house regularly during the negotiations. Mick usually came on a bike which he left at a tobacconist in Merrion Row, just round the corner. At that time, December 1920, Dr Farnan was attending the wives of two of the auxiliaries, and consequently his house was never suspected. He remembered the horrible feeling he had on one occasion as a lorry full of auxiliaries pulled up before the door while Mick and Archbishop Clune were upstairs. The doctor had a few bad minutes until the husband of one of the two patients handed him a message from his wife. Another day Mick came down the stairs arm-in-arm with the Archbishop. Both were laughing at some story as Mick opened the hall door, and stood behind it until Dr Farnan hailed a cab from across the street. As the Archbishop got into the cab a lorry full of ‘Black-and-Tans’ moved slowly past the house. Perhaps some one had recognised Mick on one of his many visits. Mick closed the door, drew his revolver and watched the lorry from a corner of the curtain. The lorry continued its beat up and down the street, so Mick decided to get out through the back garden. That his house was never once searched or suspected throughout the negotiations Dr Farnan attributes to his professional interest in the wives of the auxiliaries he was attending. Suspicion there undoubtedly was, probably through some policeman glimpsing Michael Collins on one of his visits, but, fortunately, the house escaped a search, luckily for all concerned. 126
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Following his discussions with Collins, Archbishop Clune assured the British Cabinet that Collins ‘was the one with whom effective business could be done’. 127 Collins was on the run but Arthur Griffith was in Mountjoy Prison at this time, and on 8 December Dr Fogarty and Archbishop Clune met with Sir Alfred Cope, the Assistant Undersecretary for Ireland, at Mountjoy, and then with Griffith, who enthusiastically welcomed the prospect of a truce. They then met with Eoin MacNeill, who was not so enthusiastic but accepted it. The idea was presented to Michael Staines. Cope was told to present a draft of a truce agreement to Dublin Castle authorities, but this received a hostile reception from Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood and the British military. 128
Archbishop Clune returned to London and met Lloyd George on 10 December, had another meeting with him on 11 December and returned to Dublin that night. The British authorities in Dublin Castle agreed to meet with the Dá il, but Collins and Richard Mulcahy could not attend. Moreover, the proposed truce would require the IRA/Volunteers to surrender all their arms and the Dá il could not meet publicly. Clune again returned to London on 18 December, and though meetings continued until 28 December the negotiations were at an end. Archbishop Clune wrote to Bishop Fogarty, outlining the failure and his feelings:
Jermyn Court Hotel, London,
New Year’s Day, 1921.
My Lord, You have heard, I daresay, that I broke off negotiations on the morning of Christmas Eve and that in the afternoon the Prime Minister’s Secretary was here begging me not to leave town till the New Year, as Cabinet was to consider the whole question, and important developments might take place. He came again last Tuesday evening and took back with him a memo at the points of the Truce. On Wednesday afternoon there was a long Cabinet meeting and another on Thursday, at which General Macready, Lord French and several others were present. The Secretary rang me up on Thursday morning to inform me that he would call that night late or Friday (yesterday) morning. He came at 11. 30 a. m. yesterday, and here is a summary of his oral communications.
That Cabinet etc. had given long and careful consideration to my proposals: that the proposed Truce gave no effective guarantee for a permanent settlement: that consequently the Government had come to the conclusion that it was better to see the thing through as was done in the American and South African wars unless meanwhile the Sinn Fé iners surrender their arms and publicly announce the abandonment of violent measures: that the Government felt sanguine that the new Home Rule Bill when studied and understood would be worked, in fact they felt sanguine that within six months all would be working in harmony for Ireland, etc., etc. He then added a few gracious personal compliments from the Prime Minister. My first comment was that I felt sure the Holy Ghost had nothing to do with such a decision which sent him off exploding with laughter. What is the source of this strange optimism about all classes working the Home Rule Bill in harmony within a few months, I can’t make out. (Greenwood repeats it in a speech quoted in to-day’s paper), unless it is a deduction from the whining [sic] across the water. This Government determination to carry on the policy of frightfulness to the bitter end may be bluff. I think it is not, and hence I believe that the position needs further reconsideration in the light of this considered declaration of
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policy on their part.
The Secretary incidentally mentioned that from my conversations the Prime Minister had a higher idea of the gunmen: that there could be no humiliation before the world in yielding to vastly superior forces: that the Home Rule Act can be worked for Ireland, not for England, and that through the working of it practically every English official could be sent out of Ireland in a few months, etc., etc.
The point I am coming to is: Ought our grand boys allow themselves to be butchered to make a Saxon holiday? Ought they not rely on passive resistance? However, I suppose the advent of De Valera to Ireland will quickly solve these questions.
Though I am naturally sorry that my mission has not been successful, in another sense I am glad it has ended. I was
beginning to feel the strain. It has done good, I think, indirectly. It has narrowed down the issues, and incidentally it has savedYour Lordship’s life and All Hallows College from military occupation. My programme is now to leave for the continent as soon as Father McMahon joins me, and to catch the boat at Naples on the 24th, I feel sure you need have no further apprehension about yourself. They have given me assurances that all necessary
measures would be taken to safeguard your life.
WishingYour Lordship a full measure of NewYear graces and Joys.
I remain, with grateful memories of your kindness. Yours very sincerely in Xt.
P. J. Clune Archbishop of Perth.
A peace agreement might have been reached following Clune’s mission along much the same lines as agreed a year later but for the British Cabinet’s refusal to grant any form of dominion status and the demand that the Irish turn in their weapons before talks were initiated—and the most bitter and bloody period of the war could have been avoided. 129 If it had been up to Collins, a truce would have been declared in December 1920. 130 Unofficially, by that time it was clear to some British policy-makers in Dublin and London that many Irish leaders would accept a ceasefire followed by negotiations without preconditions, and that dominion status like that of South Africa or Canada would be acceptable to many. In an interview with American journalist Carl Ackerman, Collins was critical of the Irish political leaders’ failure to seize the opportunity for a truce at the end of 1920:
A truce would have been obtained after the burning of Cork by the forces of the Crown in December 1920, had our own leaders acted with discretion. There is every reason to believe the British Government was minded to respond favourably to the endeavours of Archbishop Clune. But the English attitude hardened through the too precipitate action of certain of our public men and public bodies.
…
Several of our most important men gave evidence of an over- keen desire to peace, while proposals were being made and considered. So it was that, although terms of the truce had been virtually agreed upon, the British statesmen abruptly terminated the negotiations when they discovered what they took to be signs of weakness in our councils. They conditioned the truce, then, on surrender of our arms; and the struggle went on. 131
Later, Collins was to lament:
In my opinion, Mr Lloyd George intended the Act [the Government of Ireland Act, passed in December 1920] to allay world criticism. As propaganda, it might do to draw attention away from British violence for a month or two longer. At the end of the period, most of the English Ministers mistakenly believed Ireland would have been terrorised into submission. 132
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There are others who feel that the July 1921 Truce could have been agreed at this earlier time but that it was abandoned because some British leaders thought that the Irish were too keen on a truce, which was perceived as evidence of Irish weakness. Mulcahy thought that that was the case and echoed that the opportunity was lost ‘through the too precipitate action of certain of our public men and public bodies’. 133 Reports poured into London that the IRA was demoralised and that public opinion was turning against them because of their own programme of reprisals. The British thought that the Irish ‘needed’ a truce, and Lloyd George insisted at the last minute on the surrender of arms—and that was the end of these discussions. 134 Scotland Yard’s investigators erroneously reported that de Valera wanted a truce but that Collins had a veto and exercised it. 135 The reports could not have been more wrong. Collins was flexible about the terms of any truce, short of a surrender of arms, but the British Cabinet insisted on the turning in of arms, and this was a non-starter in any Irish circle. As a result, the decision of the British government to keep the emphasis on a military solution persisted into the spring of 1921.
Further attempts at negotiation continued after these failures, and Andy Cope and Collins met several times in complete secrecy. Collins remained
sceptical, but he knew that the IRA’s military position was beginning to unravel. British military intelligence still expressed confidence that the military could crush the revolt. David Boyle of British intelligence wrote a report predicting military victory in six weeks. This greatly influenced the British Cabinet to shut down peace initiatives. 136 Nevertheless, the Clune negotiations indicated a willingness to continue to negotiate and the recognition that Collins was a ‘major player’, and the British from this time forward began to accept that a negotiated settlement was possible. As with the military actions, however, negotiations had to proceed at a pace that could be acceptable to both sides; ideologues and militarists on both sides had to be cajoled to the table. Georges Clemenceau was right: ‘War is much too important to be left to soldiers’.
Cope’s letters to Fisher illustrated the problems he faced: ‘taking his career in his hands’, he had ‘abandoned the traditional methods of the Castle peace parleyings and got into direct and personal contact with the leaders of the Irish people’. He ‘had to first convince the powers of Sinn Fé in that he meant to play straight with them, and then persuade the powers residing in Dublin Castle and elsewhere that the leaders of the “murder gang” desired an honourable settlement’. Finally, he informed Fisher that ‘I have met quite a number of prominent Sinn Fé iners—two were sentenced to death in the rebellion and reprieved—and I feel that I have the temper of the present situation’. 137 Cope had contacts at the highest levels of the IRA. When he asked an intermediary to put him in touch with deValera, she asked, ‘Do you not want to meet Michael Collins? ’ Cope replied, ‘No, I meet Michael every night’. 138 Some deemed Cope a traitor. When the Truce was announced, the conservative newspaper The Morning Post editorialised: ‘While they were still fighting in the illusion that the Government was behind them, Mr Cope was establishing friendly relations with their would-be murderers’. 139
Beginning in January 1921 and continuing until the Truce in July, both sides suffered the highest casualties of the war. Attacks escalated to new levels of violence in the south-western counties as well as in Dublin, and this led to a number of mid- to large-scale engagements between the IRA and the regular British army. From that point the IRA was fighting with dwindling resources, and the sides moved closer to a political solution. Collins knew how fewVolunteers were actually available for service. By the time of the Truce there were scarcely 2, 500 Volunteers under arms, and all
units were almost out of ammunition. When Tom Barry came to Dublin in May 1921 to report on the progress in Cork, his one request was for more ammunition—and de Valera replied, ‘We’ll let Mick take care of that’. 140 The British had made it almost impossible to smuggle arms and ammunition, and every bullet had to be made to count.
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The British government was also under pressure of time owing to the provisions of the implementation schedule of the Government of Ireland Act. The Bill took two forms: appeasement and coercion. The carrot and the stick were being offered to Ireland concurrently, which Chesterton derided in his pamphlet The Delusion of the Double Plan. 141 Throughout the war the British wavered between repression and conciliation, but repression fuelled Irish anger while concession signalled weakness and encouraged people to believe that the IRA were winning. British policy seemed to lurch from one response to another. As General Macready put it, ‘Whatever we do, we are sure to be wrong’. The required elections that were included in the conditions of the Act took place in the North and South on 13 and 14 May 1921, and the two devolved parliaments were to take effect immediately afterwards. Just as on the Irish side, the British were split on how to proceed with the war. Chief Secretary Hamar Greenwood argued for more military action and ‘not to hesitate at the last gate’. 142 Even Lloyd George was still making bellicose public pronouncements in the spring:
So long as Sinn Fé in demands a Republic, the present evils must go on. So long as the leaders of Sinn Fé in stand in this position, and receive the support of their countrymen, settlement is in my opinion impossible. 143
With time running out, Anderson, Cope and Sturgis increased their efforts to entice Sinn Fé in to the bargaining table, and pushed the more militant British to accept that a negotiated settlement was best for them as well. The key intermediary was Cope, who had been working towards this position since his arrival in Dublin Castle. He made contacts with any of the Irish side whom he deemed amenable to negotiation, particularly making overtures to Collins; in Sturgis’s words, Cope was talking to all, like ‘an octopus grasping everything with its tentacles’. 144 Cope met everyone he could, and astounded some of the Castle authorities. Hervey de
Montmorency said that he could
not understand how anyone could have been induced to undertake such an unpleasant task. Cope must have had tremendous courage, patience and a strong stomach to boot, to hold interviews with the savage, unsavoury human butchers, gloating over their murders of constables and soldiers. 145
Moves towards negotiation continued, and in April 1921 Edward Stanley, Lord Derby, was sent secretly to Ireland for another series of talks with the Irish, and with de Valera in particular. He stayed at the Gresham Hotel, ineffectively disguised by horn-rimmed glasses and under the name ‘Edwards’. His overcoat with his name embroidered into it was found by a chambermaid in his room. He met with deValera to begin negotiations for a truce, but little progress was made.
The fact that de Valera spent from May 1919 to December 1920 in the US took him out of the mainstream of the Irish military and political efforts. When he returned, he told members of the Dá il that the newspapers in the US were calling the Irish ‘murderers’ for the way in which they were conducting their guerrilla war. De Valera was determined to bring Collins and the IRA under control and to exert his personal authority over the Irish military effort. He blamed much of his failure to gain American recognition of Ireland on the absence of a conventional IRA military presence. Somewhat inexplicably, deValera and Brugha were both advocates of larger military actions, with de Valera saying that ‘what we want is one good battle a month with about 500 men on each side’. 146 Both de Valera and Brugha had experienced the folly of the Rising and of placing the Irish in areas that could be surrounded by the British (and was to be repeated in the Custom House attack on which deValera insisted), so they should have known better. DeValera’s return signalled a temporary but disastrous change in IRA military tactics in Dublin, but also renewed efforts to seek a political settlement. 147
Following the Custom House fire on 25 May 1921, the Irish ammunition situation moved from acute to desperate. The British seized a considerable amount of arms and ammunition on that day, and the Dublin Brigade could not withstand the loss of men to death or capture. Dan
McDonnell said that ‘things were so bad with all the units that it was a question of how long they could last. We had no ammunition; we had few guns. ’148 Overall, the IRA ‘was effectively beaten in Dublin by June 1921’. 149 As so often happened during the war, however, events moved somewhat in parallel, and by spring 1921 the British government was also considering some sort of political settlement. This represented a major change from Walter Long’s statement of summer 1920 that ‘the British would not bargain with murderers. The thing is unthinkable. ’150 Fisher’s appointment of Anderson, Cope and Sturgis to their positions in Dublin Castle some months before looked prescient and was beginning to bear fruit.
Sturgis’s views of de Valera and Collins, and their status and roles in any negotiations, were reflected in an intelligence report from June 1920: 151
My private opinion is that things are in a very bad way and de Valera knows it. The Volunteers are out of hand and robberies are being carried out without orders. De Valera is of the opinion that he will be able to arrange a scheme with the Northern Parliament and then present it to the British Government for their acceptance. I am sure he has no power over Collins, if he had, and if sincere would he not have ordered the murders to stop at once? 152
By early spring 1921, the calls for negotiation were increasing to the degree that British intelligence did its best to keep deValera from being harmed or arrested:
… the Intelligence Service has been ordered not to employ their information to secure the arrest of certain individuals, amongst whom was Mr de Valera. It was considered better that he should remain at large, in order that the authorities might have the head of Sinn Fé in organisation with whom to treat should the occasion arise. This order was loyally obeyed despite the difficulty of trying not to see him. 153
By late May 1921 Cope’s efforts were bringing the two sides closer, though the process proceeded in fits and starts, as one can imagine. At a London conference the British Cabinet met with General Macready, who
outlined the draconian measures that he felt would be necessary if a military option were to go forward, and he indicated that he was prepared to implement such measures. These included provisions that any member of the Dá il, the IRA, the IRB or Sinn Fé in was liable to be executed for treason, and that anyone caught with arms would suffer the same fate. 154 Macready emphasised that such a plan could only be effective if implemented ‘with utmost thoroughness’ and that only by doing so could the morale of the soldiers and police be maintained. 155 He was blunt with the Cabinet: either ‘go all out or get out’. 156 It is unclear whether he really thought that such a plan would work or was merely pressuring the Cabinet to make a decision. How the Irish would have reacted to the increased British troops is, of course, unknown, but it is hard to visualise their being able to put up the necessary resistance to such British reinforcements.
Cope and the ‘peace faction’ of Dublin Castle disagreed with prolonging the military action, feeling that a military solution would require strict martial law, more house searches, more customs inspectors to stop all IRA arms importation, identity passes to be carried by all persons at all times, and the reassignment of every available British soldier from around the world to Ireland. Colonel Sir Hugh Elles, Commandant of the Tank Corps Centre, was asked to submit a report to the Cabinet; he estimated that if such measures were put into effect it might take two years to complete, but there could be no absolute assurance that the measures, as strict as they would have to be, would result in a favourable end to the war. 157 The British had to make a choice: would their military attempt to subjugate Ireland by threats, terror and more violence, or would they attempt to make peace?
Anderson knew that the time for a decision was imminent. He warned that ‘military action to be effective must be vigorous and ruthless. Many innocent people will suffer and the element of human error cannot be eliminated. ’158 Sir Basil Thomson believed that the Irish were split and that Collins was leading a more militarist faction against the more moderate de Valera. On 13 May he reported that the IRA was prepared to fight on and repudiate any settlement made by Sinn Fé in. (In retrospect, his report may have been premature but also prescient, as shown by events after the Treaty, but his estimation of Collins’s militarism versus de Valera’s moderation at this time was misinformed. 159)
In July 1921 there was still a widely shared belief among most British army officers that the IRA was on the verge of total defeat. Many of the officers believed that the IRA could have been completely crushed within ‘weeks’, or at most‘six months’. For these men, the government’s willingness to negotiate a settlement at this point was almost incomprehensible. 160 This narrative came to dominate the post-conflict official reports compiled by the military. 161 In The Record of the Rebellion, compiled in 1922, the British army argued that the IRA was in a desperate position at the time of the Truce:
The rebel organisation throughout the country was in a precarious position … The flying columns and active service units … were being harried and chased from pillar to post, and were constantly being defeated and broken up by the Crown forces; individuals were being hunted down and arrested; the internment camps were filling up …162
A September 1921 report complained further:
It is small wonder that the rebel leaders grasped at the straw that was offered, and agreed to negotiation …163
At the same time, some Irish commanders in the field scoffed at Cope’s efforts, thinking that the Irish were ‘winning’ the war and that it was the British military who had their backs to the wall. Some reported discussions among the Irish that it was the British who seemed desperate for a truce. 164 For all that was said or thought on both sides, in May 1921 the Irish killed more members of the British security forces than in any of the preceding months of the war, and the Irish losses were commensurate. (As should have become apparent in World War I, and as the US learned in the guerrilla war of Vietnam sixty years later, an attrition-based ‘body count’ approach is an extremely poor way of determining the course of a war. ) But the war depended on the political momentum that had been generated and that could not be moderated by that stage.
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