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BRITAIN, IRELAND and INDIA (2 of 5)

Irish War of Independence memorial
in Dublin

Willingness to be ruled by others was eroding, and Britain, because of its shortage of money, could not afford to respond to risings against its rule everywhere. Britain bluffed strength in maintaining its empire. But the British were not able to bluff the Irish. The Irish organization, Sinn Fein, had pushed aside the moderate Irish party for independence and had gathered extensive support. By the end of 1918, many from Ireland were in jail for political agitation. An Irish militia began conducting guerrilla war against the Britain's military barracks and convoys. The British retaliated. A large portion of the Irish police resigned rather than serve the British, and England replaced them with a force from Britain called the Black and Tans.

In 1919, all out war erupted in Ireland. Money from Irish-Americans and from the Irish in the British dominions, including Australia, were flowing to the Irish cause. British rule in Ireland was doomed, but Britain pursued the war. The Irish Republican Army was using terror in its guerrilla warfare against the British, and the Black and Tans resorted to counter terror. The Black and Tans burned villages and large parts of towns, and they resorted to torture in interrogation.

In England complaints were made against what was being done in Ireland, some complaints by conservatives and some by members of the Labour Party and by newspapers. The Times complained about Britain being exposed to the scorn of the world. A Labour party commission on Ireland urged withdrawal from Ireland and described things being done in the name of Britain "which must make her name stink in the nostrils of the whole world." A conservative member of Lloyd-George's cabinet, Sir Henry Wilson, issued an opinion that would be heard decades later in the United States. He urged Britain to "go all out" in its efforts in Ireland or "get out."

The war lasted two years and was settled by negotiations from October to December, 1921, the British agreeing to an independent Irish Free State with dominion status, with five counties in the north of Ireland remaining as a part of Great Britain. There Protestants were a majority and adamantly in favor of remaining a part of Britain, while in Ireland as a whole Catholics were a majority. The independence that the Irish had declared in 1916 had been declared again on January 21, 1919, and had won recognition from only the Bolsehvik government in Russia. Britain officially recognized its new arrangement with Ireland on December 6, 1922. And in Ireland a civil war followed between those who accepted the new arrangement and those who did not.