When Smuts reported this to the Cabinet next day, the final phrase was warmly greeted by Churchill: ‘I would go a long way to humour them.’ Lloyd George’s private secretary Tom Jones thought that the ‘most irreconcilable’ minister was Balfour, as he had been all through the recent discussions. Churchill had ‘frankly acknowledged the failure of the policy of force’, and most of the other ministers were in favour of conciliation. When consulted, Macready now favoured ‘an open and formal truce’, but Tudor still preferred a ‘tacit arrangement’, and the Cabinet seems to have agreed with him that any truce ‘should be of the “gentlemanly understanding” type’.232 Yet two days after the generals had gone back to Dublin, a formal truce was agreed. It was Macready, not Tudor, whom Midleton asked along to the Mansion House discussions.
Midleton returned to the Mansion House on 8 July with Lloyd George’s agreement to a truce, to find Dawson Street ‘blocked almost from end to end’. As a way was made for him through the crowd, the people ‘dropped on their knees with one accord in hundreds, supplicating Heaven for peace’. When Macready (whom Midleton had visited at Kilmainham, the Irish Command GHQ, earlier in the day, and found ‘protected by every conceivable military device’) ‘boldly came through the crowd in his motor’ he was actually cheered. Once the C-in-C had joined the discussions, they rapidly crystallized into practical truce terms, although he was the only soldier present. The Irish negotiators (de Valera, Brugha, Barton and Duggan) came from the ‘state’ rather than the ‘army’ side. Mulcahy, the Chief of Staff, told by Brugha that it was ‘not necessary’ for him to be there, waited for the outcome at Alice Stopford Green’s house around the corner.
Midleton seems to have been content with oral agreement: no Truce document was signed by both sides. Macready thought he had agreed to five terms – the cessation of raids and searches, the restriction of military activity to supporting the police in ‘normal civil duties’, the removal of curfew restrictions, the suspension of reinforcements from England, and the replacement of the RIC by the DMP in policing Dublin itself – while the republicans had agreed to avoid ‘provocative displays’, to ‘prohibit the use of arms’, and to ‘cease military manoeuvres of all kinds’.233 The Irish Bulletin published a slightly different version, listing six terms on the British side, including no incoming troops or munitions and no military movements – with the exception of ‘maintenance drafts’; ‘no pursuit of Irish officers or men or war material or military stores’; ‘no secret agents noting descriptions or movements, and no interference with the movements of Irish persons, military or civil’; and ‘no pursuit or observance of lines of communication or connection’. The ‘Irish Army’ had agreed four conditions: no attacks on Crown forces and civilians; no provocative displays of forces, armed or unarmed; no interference with government or private property; and ‘to discountenance and prevent any action likely to cause disturbance of the peace which might necessitate military interference’.
These two sets of terms reflected the concerns of each side as much as actual formal agreements. The failure to produce a single version was a fruitful source of dispute, and the atmosphere remained stormy. After a trip to Cork in mid-July, Collins reported to de Valera that ‘the spirit animating the enemy’ there was ‘arrogant and provocative’. He believed that ‘they are trying to regard the position not as a truce but as a surrender on our part.’ His car was stopped on the road to Clonakilty by troops, ‘although they have no power whatever to undertake such action’. In Cork city ‘Captain Blest and some companion paraded the streets for half an hour or so evidently hoping to see me. I had it conveyed to them that if they were on the streets when I went out they would be regarded as breaking the truce. I don’t know whether this intimation had any relation to the fact that they were not on the streets when I did go out a few minutes afterword.’
But both sides had a strong interest in preventing breakdown. At the high political level, the Truce was a dramatic step-change for the republican counter-state. Lord Midleton hardly exaggerated when he said that ‘the proceedings of that week … in reality decided the fate of Ireland.’ The negotiations effectively set what Smuts called ‘the Republican Government’ face to face with the United Kingdom authorities on a basis of equality. (Even so, Smuts dismissed them as ‘all small men, rather like sporadic leaders thrown up in a labour strike’ – a comparison they would have found particularly disagreeable.) Since the British Cabinet was well aware of the possible implications of this, it did not happen without a good deal of awkward manoeuvring, and ultimately Lloyd George had been driven to ignore his colleagues’ reservations. But they did not protest.
It was different with the front-line Crown forces, for whom the Truce came as a severe shock. Strickland complained that ‘the flaunting of Sinn Féin flags everywhere is trying the temper of the Police rather highly.’ This was deliberate provocation – ‘they are no doubt trying to make them break out’ – and it would work. ‘It will be beyond human endurance for some people to lie down and be kicked by murderers.’ He was plainly baffled by the reversal of power. ‘It appears that everything must be done on our side to avoid provocation, and nothing on theirs – and yet we are, or were, in the winning position.’234 His regimental officers used less cautious language – one lieutenant in the Essex Regiment fumed that ‘the British politicians arranged an armistice just when we could have quelled the rebellion.’ His men were defiant: a draft leaving Cork for an overseas posting sang ‘We are the boys of the Essex’ (a riposte to the rebel song ‘The Boys of Kilmichael’) on the way to the quay, and one ‘swarmed up the rigging of the ship, pulled out a green, white and gold [sic] flag from a pocket, blew his nose on it, put it back in his pocket and came down to loud cheers’.
The obvious bafflement and dismay of the Crown forces cannot have been lost on the people. Republicans were ecstatic; Charlie Dalton, seeing ‘our tricolour flag waving from every window, felt like a kid … unbelieving, blissful!’ A series of institutions which had been more or less bending under growing coercive pressure – the ministry, the republican courts, elements of the IRA itself – were able to regroup, rebuild and reinforce. At this level, the eventual political negotiations were in a sense marginal – it was understood by everyone (and enthusiastically predicted by some) that they might break down at any moment. But as long as they lasted, the administration of the country during this odd interregnum was creating ‘facts on the ground’.
The ambiguity of the Truce terms meant that some key issues could be a potent source of friction. GHQ’s own interpretation, for the benefit of its liaison officers, was that ‘neither military nor police forces are to be increased’ – which Macready would have accepted. But he would have repudiated the contention that ‘there are to be no movements of bodies of British troops or police from place to place except under exceptional circumstances and after consultation with [the] Republican Liaison Officer,’ and still more the suggestion that ‘police or military carrying arms is to be regarded as a provocative display.’ The only exception GHQ admitted was that police on night duty in towns with more than 5,000 inhabitants ‘have the right to carry arms for their own protection in the discharge of ordinary civil police duties’. GHQ also demanded that the Martial Law Area should now be ‘in no worse position than the rest of Ireland’, so that there would be no further banning of fairs or closures of creameries.235 After a period of contention on the streets, troops and police were mostly pulled back into barracks to avoid confrontation, which seemed like a further defeat to many.
TALKING TO THE ENEMY
The question of liaison between the British and Irish forces during the Truce was as delicate as it was urgent. The British suggestion that RIC County Inspectors should act as liaison officers was dismissed by Collins on the slightly obscure ground that ‘it would be impossible to get the necessary men’, and that the County Inspectors ‘would be much more harmful than regular officers, from the point of view of being in constant touch’. But of cou
rse there was a political point here – the recognition of the ‘Irish army’. In some places this was conceded with great reluctance, if at all. The 6th Division dismissed IRA liaison officers as ‘of little value except as figureheads, to whom episodes were reported as a matter of form, prior to being finally forgotten’. Many British commanders predictably took a dim view of them personally. ‘They had no great authority in their own areas, and their personal qualifications were not, as a rule, such as to appeal to the officers with whom they were supposed to have dealings.’ (Not only had the first republican liaison officer for the 6th Division area ‘organised the Kilmichael ambush’, his successor was ‘a man who admitted he had assisted in the attempt to murder General Strickland on 24 September 1920’.)
Some saw Tom Barry’s appointment as liaison officer as a provocation in itself. He found he could not get the commander of the 17th Brigade, Colonel Commandant Higginson, even to meet him if he insisted on wearing Volunteer uniform. When Barry finally went to Victoria barracks ‘in mufti’, Higginson opened proceedings by firing the question ‘Are you representing Mr De Valera here?’ (a not unreasonable question, since de Valera had negotiated the Truce, and none of the army leadership had been involved). Barry indignantly said he was not, ‘and wished it to be clearly recognised that I was an officer of the Irish Republican Army’; Higginson inevitably replied that he ‘did not recognise’ the IRA.236 This was a shaky start, and things hardly got much better. Barry reported that his British counterpart had told him ‘that he had no orders preventing his troops from carrying arms while on duty’, and that it was his intention to keep on patrolling. Barry ‘pointed out to him that this was a provocative action and a breach of the truce’, but concluded that in the 6th Division area ‘our protests are futile’. Representation should be made to the British GHQ where they were likely to ‘be received with more respect’.237
In October Barry resigned – it remains unclear whether his grievance was at all justified, or merely (as Mulcahy put it) an instance of Barry’s vanity and his ‘petulant and childish’ character. Others were less abrasive. The chief liaison officer, Eamonn Duggan, was a lawyer without any blood on his hands. Fintan Murphy, the businesslike GHQ fixer who was sent to Athlone to act as liaison officer for the midlands, had been a backroom worker. Things might have been different there if Collins had had his way – he urged that Seán MacEoin would be ‘indispensable’ in this post (adding that quite ‘apart from the desire to see him out, this is really true’). Murphy’s extensive records suggest that the republican authorities worried quite a lot about Truce infringements. But they were inevitably confronted with contradictory statements which they rarely had the capacity to investigate thoroughly. At Loughlynn in Roscommon, for example, it was alleged that 300 Volunteers had carried an empty coffin draped with a tricolour through the streets, passing by the home of a man they had recently shot, and shouting at his son and daughter, ‘get inside, you spies.’ The unit reported that only twenty men were involved, the coffin had been used for a catafalque during a high mass for the IRA dead, and the flags had been removed before it was taken away in a cart after the service.238
Some liaison problems stemmed, inevitably, from the imprecise terms of the Truce itself. One example was the Belfast Boycott. Was it covered by the Truce or not? The Minister for Labour initially instructed ‘all the Committees not to take any drastic action in connection with the Boycott’ during the Truce – but added, ‘I take it they are allowed to note who is breaking the Boycott during the Truce with a view to subsequent action.’ At the end of July committees were formally instructed that the boycott did not come under the terms of the Truce, but ‘drastic action in connection with it must not be taken’ while the Truce lasted. If committees found, for instance, that traders had received Belfast goods, they ‘will inform them that they are aware of the fact, but no attempt will be made to raid the shops or railways for the destruction of these goods’.239 Clearly, ‘destruction of property is a distinct breach of the Truce’, but ‘in other respects the boycott is to continue.’ Some people thought, or hoped, that it had been suspended, however. A Granard grocer, complaining to Murphy that ‘a consignment of goods from a Belfast firm were [sic] today carried off in the name of the Belfast Boycott’, demanded that if the boycott was continuing ‘it should be made quite plain in the Press, and not leave people under the impression it has ceased.’240
‘THERE SHOULD BE NO QUESTION OF VACATION OR HALF-TIME WORK’
‘In view of the perhaps very long and hard struggle in front of us, it is absolutely necessary to throw responsibility upon younger men’ – even at the cost of ‘some present loss’. Mulcahy wrote this to a brigadier he was sacking, but it reflected his concern to use the Truce to reconstruct the Volunteers and provide some space for activities that had never been fully developed. Training camps sprang up everywhere – not least because, as O’Malley said, ‘We had to give the officers sufficient work to keep them busy and do our best to prevent them from entering towns and cities where they would become known to enemy intelligence agents.’241
O’Malley’s own training camp provided fieldcraft and ambush practice as well as parade-ground drill. Cumann na mBan turned out enthusiastically to provide catering – ‘If you’re good, we’ll wash for you also.’ 3rd Southern’s November camp was hailed as a triumph: ‘The men simply eat up the work.’ The training ‘opened up an entirely new field of work to all officers and showed up the proper working of the Company in concrete form.’ It would seem that this was fairly elementary military training, which was still necessary for most officers and men – another camp report noted that ‘on starting it was evident that they were totally ignorant of drill or discipline in any shape or form.’ The Dublin Brigade acquired a large property in Glenasmole which gradually expanded to become ‘more of a General Headquarters training camp, as men were brought [in] from various parts of the country’, mainly for instruction in using the Thompson gun by the brigade’s two American ex-officers. But, as before, this consisted only of learning to strip the guns, rather than fire them. (Ammunition may have been short, and in any case the famous thumping ‘rattle’ of the Thompson was hard to disguise.)242
Under the Truce terms road trenching was suspended. On 27 July, GHQ ordered units to ensure roads were made fit for traffic; but to ‘bear in mind that those repairs are to be carried out with a view to possible resumption of hostilities’. Munitions supply, on the other hand, was to be increased ‘to the fullest possible extent’. ‘There should be no question of Vacation or Half-time work on the part of anybody engaged in this department.’ If hostilities were renewed it would be ‘vital … to have a liberal supply of War Material of all procurable kinds’. Since munitions shortages had been, and remained, the biggest single handicap to the Volunteer campaign, this clearly represented an attempt to change the status quo, and so was a breach of the Truce – albeit not in GHQ’s view, it appears. Such issues would preoccupy the committee set up in London to monitor the Truce, and would more than once irrupt into the Anglo-Irish negotiations at the highest level.
Truce conditions also allowed a return to drilling, which itself could raise issues which had been neglected during the fighting. The local Volunteers in Ring, Co. Waterford, had ‘learned all their drill in Irish’, but when the brigadier visited them in September he insisted on the drill commands being given in English. Though this was presumably the brigade’s standard practice, it ‘caused considerable dissatisfaction among the men, and made a bad impression on the people of Ring’. Another military-language issue remained unresolved. All the Volunteer titles of rank were English, and as (Commandant General) Béaslaí reflected in December, ‘it is a pity that we did not devise exclusively Irish titles which could be easily used by the men whether they knew Irish or not,’ and which might ‘soon become as familiar to everyone as “Sinn Féin” or “Coiste Gnotha [the governing body of the Gaelic League]” ’. Was it too late to do anything about it, he wondered? Adj
utant General Gearoid O’Sullivan noted that ‘for the moment titles and ranks etc are in abeyance’ (presumably while the ‘New Army’ was constructed), but sent a copy of the proposed scheme. ‘If you could draw up similar ones in Irish,’ he suggested to Béaslaí, ‘the Irish ones only should be circulated.’ This would be ‘good from the point of view of language and association’, but also – interestingly – ‘would do a great deal towards removing the militaristic and introducing the Volunteer touch into the work’.243 But, despite his sense of its importance, Béaslaí still took three months to come up with the Irish rank titles; by that time it was indeed too late. The Volunteers were on the brink of dissolution, and even the anti-Treaty IRA went on using English titles. Generations later, the Provisional IRA would still be run by an army council and a chief of staff.
The sense that the Truce would be brief was widespread. It is worth recalling that, as Midleton recorded, the original truce talks had assumed that ‘the negotiations would not last more than a fortnight or three weeks’. In fact it took six weeks even to agree the basis for substantive talks in London. After two months the Adjutant General announced that GHQ was ‘of the opinion that the truce period is coming to an end’. Ernie O’Malley remembered Eoin O’Duffy proposing to break the Truce, when the London negotiations approached deadlock, by attacking British posts without giving the required seventy-two hours’ warning. Though some officers were in favour – assuming that the British would do the same – the divisional staff ‘repudiated the suggestion coming as it did from a member of GHQ’. If there was to be a fight it should begin honourably. But exactly how remained unclear. It has indeed been said that the army’s preparations for a resumption of hostilities were ‘largely a sham’, and no evidence exists of any plan being drawn up, or even ‘any considered national military strategy’.244
The Republic- The Fight for Irish Independence Page 42