John Redmond's Last Years Part 11

"This statement amounted to an unconditional offer of the services of the Irish Volunteers to the English Government, and was made without any consultation with the Volunteers themselves. The first that members of the Provisional Committee heard of their being offered to the Government was when they read it in the newspapers, and Mr. Redmond's nominees on the Committee were as much surprised as the older members. At the next meeting of the Standing Committee, held a couple of days later, the nominated members strove hard to induce us to endorse Redmond's offer. The utmost they could get, however, notwithstanding their clear party majority, was a statement of 'the complete readiness of the Irish Volunteers to take joint action with the Ulster Volunteer Force for the defence of Ireland.' Further than that the older members of the Committee declined to go. This statement in reality committed, and was meant to commit, the Volunteers to nothing, though it was interpreted by the Press as a complete endors.e.m.e.nt of Mr. Redmond's policy."

At the beginning of the war, there were two strong currents of desire in the Volunteer body and its backers. One sought that the Volunteers should retain complete freedom of action and in no way be brought under the War Office. The other craved to see them trained and armed with the least possible delay. Colonel Moore,[5] who was the chief of their military staff at this time, says Mr. Hobson, saw no way of accomplis.h.i.+ng the latter object without the a.s.sistance of the military authorities. Other men, who had come in since Redmond's speech, impressed on the public that without legal recognition from the Crown no Volunteer could act against the Germans in case of a landing without exposing himself and others to the penalties which Germany was inflicting in Belgium wherever the civilian population fired a shot. As a result, negotiations were opened in August 1914 with the Irish Command, and Colonel Moore, in concert with General Paget's staff, drew up a scheme for training the Irish and Ulster Volunteers and for using them when trained for a short term of garrison duty in Ireland. The scheme was submitted to the Provisional Committee, who added conditions designed to lead to rejection by the War Office; and in the upshot Colonel Moore's proposals were refused by Lord Kitchener on one side and by the Standing Committee of Volunteers on the other.

Redmond was of course aware of the failure of this scheme, and took up the matter personally. He wrote to the Chief Secretary:

HOUSE OF COMMONS,

_September 9, 1914. Private_.

MY DEAR MR. BIRRELL,

I am very anxious to put shortly before you on paper my views with reference to the Volunteer question, which we discussed with the Prime Minister to-day. I take so strong a view on the subject that I think I must ask you to show him this letter and to urge upon him the importance of getting the War Office to move. I know the influences that are at work in the War Office throwing cold water on the Volunteers and causing intense dissatisfaction in Ireland by unnecessary delays.

What I suggest should be done is this: There are two separate questions: (1) Recruits; and (2) Volunteers for Home Defence.

The first absolutely depends upon the way in which the second is treated. If the existing Volunteer organization is ignored and sneered at and made little of, recruiting in the country will not go ahead.

On the other hand, if the Volunteers are properly treated, I believe that recruiting will go ahead.

Now, my suggestion is this: that an announcement should be made immediately that the War Office are taking steps to a.s.sist in the equipment and arming and instructing of a certain number of the Irish Volunteers for Home Defence, and that this will be done without interfering in any way with the character or organization of the existing Volunteer Force.

Carrying out this programme will really not stand in the way of the preparing of the new Army. All that is required is a few thousand rifles, and there are plenty of them in the military stores in Ireland at this moment which are not being used and will not be used, because they are too old, in the training of the recruits, but which would be quite suitable for making a beginning at any rate in the drilling of the Volunteers. It might be stated that they would be replaced by better weapons gradually, as soon as the rush was over.

A few instructors should be placed at the disposal of the Volunteers.[6]

If this is done, intense satisfaction will be given all through the country, and the pride and sentiment of the Volunteers will be touched, and the appeal for recruits generally through the country, and even in the ranks of the Volunteers themselves, will, I am confident, be responded to.

But, as I have said, if this course is not taken, inevitably recruiting will flag.

I would earnestly beg of you to take this matter vigorously in hand, so that some satisfactory announcement may be made before I return to Ireland next week.

Very truly yours,

RIGHT HON. A. BIRRELL, M.P. J.E. REDMOND.

Mr. Asquith's speech on September 24th was at least an indication that the Prime Minister desired to act in the spirit of Redmond's suggestions. The Chief Secretary was of the same disposition. But neither of them was able to control the imperious colleague who now had taken charge of the Army, and who in the most critical moment thwarted effectually the designs of Liberal statesmans.h.i.+p in Ireland.

After Redmond's death an "Appreciation" published in _The Times_ (with the signature "A.B.,") by Mr. Birrell, contained this pa.s.sage:

"He felt to the very end, bitterly and intensely, the stupidity of the War Office. Had he been allowed to deflect the routine indifference and suspicion of the War Office from its old ruts into the deep-cut channels of Irish feelings and sentiments, he might have carried his countrymen with him, but he jumped first and tried to make his bargain afterwards and failed accordingly. English people, as their wont is, gushed over him as an Irish patriot and flouted him as an Irish statesman. Had he and his brother been put in charge of the Irish Nationalist contingents, and an Ulster man, or men, been put in a corresponding position over the Irish Protestant contingents, all might have gone well. Lord Kitchener, who was under the delusion that he was an Irishman no less than Redmond, was the main, though not the only obstacle in the path of good sense and good feeling."

Yet it is, to say the least, not clear why Lord Kitchener should have been allowed to be an obstacle. Redmond was not fortunate in his allies.

He had set an example of generous courage; it was not followed by British statesmen.

From the very outset of his campaign in Ireland he had two hostilities to meet. The first was that of the section which had always been opposed to him--the Unionist party. Into this block he had already driven a wedge. The _Irish Times_, its princ.i.p.al organ in the South and West, was now backing him heartily, and, as has been seen, not a few leading Unionists were doing their utmost to a.s.sist. But the real opposition, that of Ulster, was in no way conciliated. On September 28th, "Covenant Day," a great meeting was held at which the Ulstermen denounced what they called the Government's treachery, and declared their implacable determination never to submit to Home Rule. Mr. Bonar Law for the British Unionists proclaimed that whereas heretofore his party were willing to be bound by the verdict of a general election, they now withdrew that condition, and without any reservation would support Ulster in whatever course it chose to adopt.

In a purely partisan sense these speeches, and this att.i.tude, did Redmond no harm in his campaign with Nationalists. When a certain section of Home Rulers were clamouring that he had been tricked and betrayed by the Government, had given all and got nothing, it was a good rejoinder to point to the fact that in Ulster's opinion the opportunity had been used to gain an unfair victory for Home Rule. But Redmond from the outbreak of the war had no concern with party or partisan arguments.

He wanted a real truce, an end of bitterness, in Ireland.

There was, moreover, a feature of the Ulster propaganda in these days which disturbed him. General Richardson, a retired Indian officer, who had chief command of the Ulster Volunteer Force, in appealing for recruits, urged the Volunteers "to recollect the events of March last and what the Navy and Army did for Ulster. They came to the help of Ulster in the day of trouble, and would come again." He added his a.s.surance to the Volunteers that "when the war was over, and their ranks were reinforced by some 12,000 men, thoroughly well trained and with vast field experience, they would return to the attack and relegate Home Rule to the devil."

It did not a.s.sist Redmond in gaining recruits for the Army that a general officer should represent the services as trusty and proven allies of gentlemen whose leading idea in life was to relegate Home Rule to such a destination The average Nationalist civilian did not easily discriminate between what was said by a retired officer out of commission and what was said by officers in uniform. There was a tendency to regard General Richardson as speaking of right for the Army--for which Nationalist recruits were desired.

The Liberal Government could not help Redmond to allay Ulster or Unionist hostility. One thing they could do; they could ensure that whatever concession or privilege was extended to those who followed Sir Edward Carson should be equally accorded to those who followed Redmond.

This one thing which they could have done they did not do. They allowed the War Office to increase the arrogance of the Ulstermen and to weaken Redmond's hand, giving Ulster special privileges, which inevitably created jealousy and suspicion in Nationalist Ireland--as shall be shown in detail.

But first it is necessary to indicate the other element of hostility--far more serious than that of Ulster, because it challenged Redmond's leaders.h.i.+p. It was that of the extremist group, which rapidly began to welcome German successes, not for any love to Germany but because it could not conceive of any hope for Ireland except in the weakening or Destruction of British power. These men, as been already seen, had acquired an influence in the Volunteer Force out of all proportion to their numbers, owing to the fact that the Irish party had stood aloof from the movement in its early stages. Professor MacNeill said later that but for the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic a.s.sociation there would have been no Irish Volunteers. The bulk of both these bodies was always antagonistic to the parliamentary movement. When their opposition openly declared itself, in consequence of the East Wicklow speech, Redmond was not sorry to have a clear issue raised, involving a formal breach. In a public letter to Colonel Moore he wrote that he read "this extraordinary manifesto with feelings of great relief," because communications from all parts of the country had forced him to the conclusion that so long as the signatories to this doc.u.ment remained members of the governing body, "no practical work could be done to put the Volunteer organization on a real business basis."

By a real "business basis" he meant that the Volunteers should be made a defensive force to act in concert with the troops engaged in the war.

That was the clear issue. You must be for the troops or against them. In these days the official att.i.tude of those who signed the dissenting manifesto was that Ireland should be neutral. But at such a crisis, as Mr. Dillon said in a telling phrase, a man who calls himself a neutral "is either an enemy or a coward."

It became only too clear later that we had to do with a body of men who were enemies and were certainly not cowards. Their number at this moment was difficult to determine. What immediately revealed itself was that the vast majority of the Volunteers, when choice was forced on them, adhered to Redmond.

The case of my own const.i.tuency, Galway City, may be given as typical, though rather of the towns than of the country. The country-side was apathetic; the towns were both for and against Redmond's policy. In Galway, Sinn Fein had a strong hold on the college of the National University, but, on the other hand, the depot of the Connaught Rangers was just outside the city at Renmore, and that famous corps had many partisans; while in the fis.h.i.+ng village of the Claddagh nearly every man was a naval reservist.

I came to Galway on the day the Home Rule Bill was signed and attended a couple of Volunteer drills, where I noted the activity of some young men going round with a pa.s.sword: "For whom will you serve?" "For Ireland only." After the publication of the dissenting manifesto a Committee was called, and I obtained leave to be present. There was a sharp discussion, and at the finish the vote was a tie, whether to support Redmond or the dissentients. This did not at all please me or my friends, so we determined to have a big general meeting to see on which side public support really lay. Everybody was invited, and a great many people could not get into the hall; this mattered the less because the Sinn Feiners cut the electric wires leading to the building and plunged us in darkness; luckily, it was a fine night, and we took the meeting outside with great success. A couple of interruptions were drastically dealt with, and complete peace then prevailed. Two of the four county members were among the many speakers, and the last man to address the meeting was a wounded Connaught Ranger back from the line. We cheered for the Rangers, and then we cheered for the King; the local band was present, but unable, though quite willing, to a.s.sist at this point.

"Isn't it a pity," the chief bandsman said to me, "there was three of us knew the tune well, but they've all gone to the front, and not a one of us ever heard it."

But as a net result the original Volunteer organization was killed. The pick of the young and keen who were with us went off to the war; the young and keen who stayed kept up an organization with very different purposes. There was plenty of material in Galway and everywhere else to build up a volunteer corps such as Redmond desired to see; but the organizing spirits were in the opposite camp, and our friends did not interest themselves in what seemed to be a kind of play-acting when such serious business was afoot in the world. Had they been set to duties of coast patrol, under officers who were available on the spot, and given clear recognition as part of the defensive forces, their body would have been alive and active; as it was, it atrophied and grew inert. Broadly speaking, the same was true all over the country. Redmond was willing to make bricks for the War Office to build with; they insisted that he should make them without straw.

Facts directly connected with recruiting ultimately convinced the British public that the War Office had spoilt a great opportunity in Ireland. But the fundamental blunder, the deep-seated cause which undermined the force of Redmond's appeal, was the refusal of recognition to the National Volunteers and the failure to fulfil the promise held out in Mr. Asquith's Dublin speech.

II

The other respects in which the War Office crippled the Nationalist efforts after recruiting were matters of detail, not of principle. The first and best help which Redmond might expect would have come from his colleagues in the party; and all the recruiting authorities in Ireland should have been directed to secure that help locally. No such step was taken. No attempt was made to enlist Nationalists of position as patrons of the recruiting campaign. In Catholic Nationalist districts it was the rule rather than the exception to select gentlemen of the Protestant Church, and of strong Unionist opinions, as recruiting officers. If Catholic Nationalists had been selected as the official agents to a.s.sist in raising the Ulster Division, there would have been an outcry, and very rightly; it would have been contrary to common sense. But the War Office, always even obsequiously ready to consider the Ulstermen's point of view, completely lacked sympathy for that of the majority in Ireland.

In some cases the choice of a man locally unpopular on public grounds afforded--to speak plainly--an excuse for those leading Nationalists who were loath to depart from all the tradition of their lifetime. Some of Redmond's colleagues held that they had been "extreme men" all their lives, and they thought it too hard that they should be expected to ask Irishmen to join the English Army. Yet these same men would have worked enthusiastically for the Volunteers, and by sympathy for their comrades who went out could have been led into a very different att.i.tude.

Many of them, too, felt an honourable scruple about asking others to do what they could not do themselves. As a parliamentary group we were under a singular disability. In its early days the Irish party had been, what Sinn Fein is now, a party of the young. But so strong was the tie of grat.i.tude that service in its ranks became an inheritance, and in most cases a man once elected stayed on till he died or resigned. By 1914, of all parties in the House we had by far the largest proportion of men over military age. I question whether three out of the seventy could have pa.s.sed the standard then exacted--for two or three of the younger men were medically unfit. In these circ.u.mstances the War Office would have been well advised to waive a regulation or two to facilitate matters; but the rigour of the rules was maintained. One of my colleagues, a man in the early forties, offered to join as a private; he was refused. In my own case a similar refusal was based on Lord Kitchener's personal opinion against that of the Under-secretary for War, to whom, as a personal friend, I had written; it took nearly six months to get the decision altered; and by that time the value of example was much depreciated. The beginning was the chance to give a lead.

Far graver was the intolerable delay in forming a corps which should appeal definitely to Irish national and Nationalist sentiment. The First Army included one Irish Division--the Tenth, destined to a splendid history, under a popular commander, Sir Bryan Mahon; but it had no specially Nationalist colour, so to say, and no connection with the Irish Volunteers. Redmond wanted the counterpart of what had been readily granted to Sir Edward Carson; and this was what Mr. Asquith had outlined in his speech at Dublin. The Sixteenth Division already existed; its commander was appointed on September 17th. But the first step to give it the desired character was not taken without long delay, and much heart-burning and confusion resulted.

Part of the confusion is attributable to the fact that Redmond, in his desire to touch the historic memories connected with the famous corps which attained its crowning glory at Fontenoy, always spoke of "a new Irish Brigade." But at the Mansion House meeting Mr. Asquith spoke of something more than a brigade--an army corps; and Redmond, following him, instantly accepted the idea. "I used the word 'brigade' in my ignorance--I meant an Irish army corps." There was always present to his mind the hope that in some larger formation the Ulster Division might find itself shoulder to shoulder with other Irish troops.

Yet intending recruits were puzzled, and Lord Meath, writing to Redmond on October 10th that he had formed a Recruiting Committee in Dublin "for the purpose of endeavouring to raise the Irish Army Corps for which you spoke," reported that men came in asking to know where was the Irish Brigade, and refused to join anything else. Lord Meath suggested that Redmond should obtain from Lord Kitchener "an official declaration sanctioning the enlistment of Irishmen in an Irish Brigade, or Irish Army Corps, consisting exclusively of Irish officers and men." He wrote again on the 14th, asking that the Prime Minister himself should be approached, and on the 17th, in reply to some communication from Redmond: "I hope you will insist on some official and unmistakable statement that your request has been granted."

The tone of these letters, coming from no fire-eating Nationalist but the staunchest of Unionist peers, is sufficient proof that Lord Kitchener's action or inaction was resented by those who knew Ireland and had the best interests of Ireland at heart. The _Irish Times_ wrote in the same sense; and on October 19th a formal attack was launched in the _Daily Chronicle_, which drew a sharp contrast with the treatment accorded to Ulster. "Up to this hour," the writer said, "the Irish Division asked for by Mr. Redmond has been refused sanction by the War Office." This was an overstatement, but it was true that up to this time such a belief naturally prevailed, because the War Office could not be induced to make the desired announcement that sanction had been given.

Moreover, although the concession had been made, it was made in a very different way from that used in dealing with Sir Edward Carson. Redmond had no voice whatever in the organization. The choice of a divisional commander was of infinite importance; and it fell upon Lieutenant-General Sir Lawrence Parsons, K.C.B., an artillery officer of great distinction, a man of wide general knowledge and culture and of strongly marked individuality. Yet his individuality did not make him easy for Redmond to work with. He was not simply a typical professional soldier of the old Army; he was an idealist in his profession; and part of the professional soldier's idealism is to resent and despise political considerations. He recognized that Redmond had spoken and acted with a statesman's vision; he failed to recognize that in many matters political tactics are necessary to carry out a statesman's plan.

Also, it was very difficult for him or for any other professional soldier to realize that recruiting, under such conditions as then prevailed, was a politician's task, not a soldier's, even in Great Britain; and that this was tenfold more true of Ireland.

The point requires to be emphasized, because it applies to a greater personage--Lord Kitchener himself. I believe that Lord Kitchener honestly desired the success of Redmond's mission. To my personal knowledge he sent for one officer long known to him and took him from a command in which he was comfortably placed and sent him, against his will, to raise one of our battalions in a difficult area. The choice was absolutely sound, and success was achieved by methods which did not always follow strictly the letter of King's Regulations. But these departures from rule were quite in accordance with the spirit of the old Army, and Lord Kitchener was ready to stand over any of them. He would do the best he could for our division on the old lines. He would, I am certain, have said that he had done the best thing possible for it in appointing to the command an Irishman who was a first-rate soldier and a first-rate man to supervise the training of troops. So far as my judgment is able to go, the credit for making the Sixteenth Division what it was when we went to France belongs chiefly to the divisional general under whom we trained.

General Parsons had the gift, which appears to be rare in soldiers, of imparting ideas not merely about discipline but about the art of war; and he had an enthusiasm which communicated itself. But these were the qualities of the soldier in his own sphere, with which Redmond had no contact. What Redmond knew was the writer of letters which now lie before me. Running through them all is the tone of a soldier in authority who accepts a.s.sistance from a friendly, influential, well-meaning but imperfectly instructed civilian. There is no recognition of the fact that Redmond was the accepted leader of a Volunteer Force numbering over a hundred thousand men; no glimpse of any perception that morally, and almost officially, Redmond was the accredited head of the nation in whose name the division was being raised--a nation to which the statutory right of self-government had just been accorded.

The whole position was extraordinary. Legally and theoretically, Redmond was a simple member of Parliament. Practically and morally, he was the head of Ireland, exactly as Botha was of South Africa; and he was trying to do without legal powers what Botha was doing by means of them. He was far more than the Leader of the Opposition in Great Britain; for in Ireland there really was no Government. Moral authority, which must proceed from consent of the governed, the Irish Government had not possessed for many a long day; but its legal status had been unimpeachable. Now even that was gone; it was merely a stop-gap contrivance, carrying on till the Act of Parliament should receive fulfilment; and, as a bare matter of fact, it was powerless. No operative decision of any moment was taken or could be taken at this moment in Ireland. Everything was referred to the Cabinet, and that body had no power to carry out a popular policy in Ireland.

Redmond had put forward a policy which they had accepted in principle.