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ABSTRACT
Historians generally view the Irish War of Independence as the first and largely unsuccessful experience for the British army in conducting modern counterinsurgency. This article argues that during the Interbellum the ‘Irish war’ became a starting point for the military thought about this type of conflict, although this did not become fully consolidated in the army’s thinking. Some important aspects of the British forces’ conduct in the ‘Irish war’ remained undervalued, not least because of the only official analysis of this conflict, ‘The Record of the Rebellion in Ireland’, was classified for a long time. It strongly challenges traditional and revisionist understanding of this conflict and its implications on the British way of counterinsurgency during the Interbellum. These contradictions between documentary evidence from archives and established methods of historical thinking, as well as correlations of archival material with our understanding of modern counterinsurgencies, will be contrasted and analysed in this article.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland. 1920–1921//TNA. War Office [henceforth WO] 141/93; Record of the Rebellion in Ireland. 1922–1923//TNA. WO 141/94. After the ‘Record of Rebellion’ had been declassified, practically all the volumes of this collective work were published in the following years: British Intelligence in Ireland; Fighting for Dublin; Hearts & Mines; Ground Truths.
2. When British army was sent in Ulster in 1969 to cope with the ‘Troubles’, colonial campaigns after 1945 were considered by the military as a possibly useful example of counterinsurgency and a source for actual doctrine of that kind. When this approach failed in Northern Ireland, the security forces had no other option and faced the necessity of actually reinventing and make sense of many things from that experience anew, things upon which the ‘Record’ had reflected half a century before. John Newsinger argues that the counterinsurgency strategy derived from the colonial experience was abandoned in favour of internal security strategy that was believed to be more appropriate and effective in advanced liberal democracy: Newsinger, ‘From Counter-Insurgency to Internal Security: Northern Ireland, 1969–1992ʹ, 85–111. On similar approach to that problem see also: Mockaitis, ‘From counterinsurgency to peace enforcement: New names for old games?’, 40–57. However, it is well known that by the start of the ‘Troubles’ there was no unified and clear understanding among the military about the forms and methods of counterinsurgency: Edwards, ‘Misapplying lessons learned? Analysing the utility of British counterinsurgency strategy in Northern Ireland, 1971–76ʹ, 303–330; Sanders, “Operation Motorman (1972) and the Search for a Coherent British Counterinsurgency Strategy in Northern Ireland,” 465–492.
3. In 1972 David Hennessy, British government minister for Northern Ireland, asked his subordinates for a brief historical assessment in concern with the ‘Black and Tans’ and ‘B-Specials.’ The author of the report came to the conclusion that ‘anybody of men from Great Britain who should find themselves in a difficult position of having to interfere in Irish affairs, are all too likely to be accused of behaving like Black and Tans. It is the credit of the Army that despite the almost routing Irish procedure of charges of brutality, they have so far managed on the whole to avoid being credibly presented as the reincarnation of their predecessors of 52 years ago’: Sandiford G.K. [private secretary for the minister of Northern Ireland] to Mr. Smith. 3 May 1972/Black and Tans. May 1972//The National Archives [henceforth TNA]. CJ 4/152.
4. Necessary Amendments. Vol. VII [In a letter from WO, Whitehall. 1 August 1922, to Lieut-Colonel D.J.C.K. Bernard. General Headquarters, The Forces in Ireland, Packgate, Dublin]//Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland [page not endorsed]; 6th Division Record. Points requiring editing before circulation. Vol. VI. M.O. 3 (c.). 21.04.1922//Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland [page not endorsed]; Record of the 5th Division [Points requiring editing before circulation. Vol. V]. M.O. 3 (c.). 25.04.1922//Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland [page not endorsed].
5. Sheehan, A Hard Local War, 12–21.
6. Cremin, ‘Fighting on Their Own Terms: The Tactics of the Irish Republican Army 1919–1921ʹ, 912–936.
7. Townshend, The British Campaign in Ireland; idem. British Policy in Ireland, 173–192; idem. In Aid of the Civil Power, 19–36; idem. The Irish Republican Army, 318–345.
8. Sheehan, Hard Local War.
9. Kautt, Ambushes and Armour.
10. Townshend, The Irish Republican Army, 318–345.
11. Sheehan, Hard Local War, 140–143; 165–167; 173–175.
12. Smith, “The Intellectual Internment of a Conflict,” 77–97.
13. H.E.R. Braine, Lieut-Colonel, G.S. D.D.M.O. & I. B.M./M.O.3/53. 21.06.1922//Record of the Rebellion, 8.
14. Naval Staff, Intelligence Division. 06.07.1922. NID/068/22/O.L.406//Ibid., 9.
15. This viewpoint was uttered before: Kaut, The Writing of ‘The Record of the Rebellion’//Ground Truths, 7–8.
16. Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920–1921, and of the Part played by the Army in dealing with it. Vol. I: Operations//Ground Truths, 16.
17. Kautt, op. cit., 7.
18. See footnote and remarks on the page of Introduction to the drafts of the I volume of the ‘Record’; H.E.R. Braine, Lieut-Colonel, G.S. D.D.M.O. & I. B.M. № 17. (M.O.3). 08.05.1922//Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland, 5–6. It is interesting to note that, although there was organized 1st Infantry Division in Ulster on August 1920, this unit had no history of its own experience during the ‘Irish war’. W. Kautt asked a very important question: ‘Was this a question apprehension over what the army might say about Northern Ireland, or did they simply not have enough to say?’: Kautt, Form of the Volumes//Ground Truths, 12–13.
19. More on comparisons between the concepts of ‘small wars’ and ‘imperial policing’ within the British military thinking after the Great War see: Whittingham, “Savage warfare”: C.E. Callwell, the roots of counter-insurgency, and the nineteenth century context,” 591–607; and Malkin, “From Small Wars to Counterinsurgency: C.W. Gwynn, “Imperial Policing” and Transformation of Doctrine”, 660–78.
20. Record of the Rebellion in Ireland, Vol. II: Intelligence; Vol. III: Law.
21. Distribution List. Volume I of Record of Rebellion in Ireland; Proposed Distribution of Divisional Records//Record of the Rebellion in Ireland [57a]; Distribution List. Dublin District. Irish Command Office. Barracks, Hounslow. 5 January 1923//Record of the Rebellion in Ireland [2/72,634 G/53a].
22. 6th Division Record. Points requiring editing before circulation. M.O. 3(c). 21.04.1922; Record of the 5th Division. Points requiring editing before circulation. M.O. 3(c). 25.04.1922; Necessary Amendments. M.O. 3. War Office, Whitehall, 01.08.1922//Record of the Rebellion in Ireland.
23. Dates indicated on the covers of the documents of archive storage: Historical Record of Rebellion in Ireland; Record of the Rebellion in Ireland.
24. For example: Memorandum by the Air Staff. What Air Control means in War and Peace and what it had achieved. Air Staff. 20 June 1930/Air Control. Staff Papers, 1929–1938 (Use of Air Force for Imperial Policing). Official Papers of MRAF. Folder IVA//TNA. AIR 75/27; Our military strength in relation to our military commitments. Memorandum by the General Staff. 1923//TNA. WO. CAB/24/159; Future size of our Regular Army. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for War. 1923//TNA. WO. CAB/24/159. More on financial and institutional difficulties faced by the Imperial General Staff after the Great War, see: Jeffrey, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire; idem. Field Marshal Henry Wilson.
25. William Kautt paid attention to this aspect and interpreted the ‘Record’ as a panoramic view on the ‘Irish war’, but didn’t mention its correlations with broader imperial context: Kaut, The Writing of ‘The Record of the Rebellion’//Ground Truths, 1–2.
26. A vast collection of archive documents on the problem was prepared by Yu.N. Tikhonov: Soviet Russia in the Fight for the ‘Afghan Corridor’ [Sovetskaya rossiya v bor’be za ‘Afganskii koridor’]. See also: Tikhonov, Stalin’s Afghan war [Afganskaya voyna Stalina]; Hopkirk, Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia.
27. One of propagandist brochures prepared on instructions of the military command asked a point-blank question of the prospects of international links of Sinn Féin and the IRA: ‘Washington will not meddle, Berlin can not. Will you trust in Moscow?’: Sheehan, op. cit., 110.
28. Third Afghan War 1919. Official Account. Compiled in the general Staff Branch, Army Head Quarters, India. Calcutta, 1926; Operations in Waziristan. 1919–1920. Compiled in the general Staff Branch, Army Head Quarters, India. Calcutta, 1921; and Haldane, “The Arab Rising in Mesopotamia, 1920,” 63–81.
29. A very small amount of works addresses this issue: Jeffrey, op. cit.; idem., ‘The road to Asia and the Grafton Hotel, Dublin: Ireland and the “British world”’, 243–256; Wiel, The Irish Factor.
30. Tripodi, “Grand Strategy and the Graveyard of Assumptions: Britain and Afghanistan, 1839–1919”, 701–725.
31. Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920–1921, and of the Part played by the Army in dealing with it. Vol. IV – Part I: A History of the 5th Division in Ireland. November, 1919 – March, 1922//Hearts & Mines, 128–130, 275–276, 278, 280–286; Sheehan, op. cit., 164.
32. One of the very rare examples: Lowe, “Some reflections of a junior commander upon the campaign in Ireland, 1920 and 1921”; and Dening, “Modern Problems of Guerrilla Warfare”.
33. Sheehan, op. cit., 23, 65–67.
34. Percival, Guerrilla Warfare, Ireland 1920–1921, 93. For the original draft see: Percival, Guerrilla Warfare in Ireland, 1919–1920//Imperial War Museum. Percival Papers. AEP 4/1.
35. Distribution List. Volume I of Record of Rebellion in Ireland//Record of the Rebellion in Ireland [there is no pagination for this document].
36. Lawrence, “The Science of Guerrilla Warfare,” 953.
37. Maguire, “Partisan and Guerrilla Warfare,” 249.
38. Callwell, op. cit.
39. Selth, “Ireland and insurgency: The lessons of history,” 307–08.
40. Gwynn, Imperial Policing, 7.
41. Townshend, In Aid of the Civil Power, 26, 36.
42. Gwynn, op. cit.
43. Beckett, Pimlott, Introduction//Armed Forces and Modern Counter-insurgency, 5.
44. Johnson, “Command of the Army, Charles Gwynn and Imperial Policing: The British Doctrinal Approach to Internal Security in Palestine 1919–29,” 571.
45. Simson, British Rule, 16–119.
46. Gwynn, Imperial Policing.
47. Townshend, In Aid of the Civil Power, 27.
48. The British, for example, were the first who introduced ‘flying columns’ in the course of the ‘Irish war’: Ground Truths [W.H. Kautt’s comment ‘t’], 96.
49. Macready, Annals of an Active Life, 115.
50. Narrative of Operations of the Cavalry Column, 26 May to 20 June 1921 [Appendix XVIII]//Hearts & Mines, 227–243.
51. For example: Bennett, “Minimum force in British counterinsurgency,” 459–475; Reis, “The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970),” 245–279; Porch, Counterinsurgency. Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War; and Jones, Smith, “Myth and the Small War Tradition: Reassessing the Discourse of British Counter-insurgency,” 436–64.
52. Assistant Commandant. Syllabus [Cold War tem, tentative plan]. Staff College, Camberley. April 1956. SCHQ 800/8/56. TNA. WO 231/101; Army Requirements for Cold War and Imperial Policing Regulations. March 1956. SCHQ. TNA. WO 231/101.
53. Internal security: publications on use of armed forces in civil disturbances. 1951–1954. War Office: East Africa Command: Papers. G (Operations) Branch. TNA. WO 276/138; Ministerial Committee to Review Organization of Armed Forces, Police and Security Services in the Colonies. 1955–1958. TNA. T 220/577; Combat development: study into counter-revolutionary operations. 1972. War Office and successors: Registered Files (General Series). TNA. WO 32/21,748; Potential operational analysis studies of internal security (IS) and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. 1975. Ministry of Defense: Defense Operational Analysis Establishment, later Defense Operational Analysis Centre: Reports and Files. TNA. DEFE 48/1113; Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency; Kitson, Low Intensity Operations.
54. ‘The solution of the Irish problem and the pacification of Irishmen was not, and never could be, the task of soldiers. That was a political problem, and no military operations could bring it about’: Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920–1921, and of the Part played by the Army in dealing with it. Vol. I: Operations//Ground Truths, 185.
55. Gwynn, op. cit., 15–19; 100–103; 112–115; 249; 312; 327; 385; 387. See also: Simson, British Rule, and Rebellion, 99–117.
56. Reis, “The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970),” 253.
57. Paget, Counterinsurgency Campaigning, 15.
58. Secret: Use of the Military in Aid of the Civil Power in Northern Ireland, 4 December 1968//TNA. DEFE (MoD) 25/257.
59. See note above 16, 48.
60. The thought is reiterated from time to time in both works: Ibid.; Gwynn, op. cit.
61. Hart, Introduction//British Intelligence in Ireland, 14.
62. Operation Banner. An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland. Prepared under the direction of the Chief of the General Staff. Army Code 71,842. 2006.
63. See note above 16, 185.
64. The ‘Record’ and other documents on the ‘Irish war’ suggests that the conduct of expeditionary counterinsurgencies is closer to the colonial wars before the Second World War, in some respects, than had been assumed: Chin, “Examining the Application of British Counterinsurgency Doctrine by the American Army in Iraq,” 1–26; Chin, ‘Colonial Warfare in a Post-Colonial State: British Military Operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan,’ 215–247; Hughes, “The Insurgencies in Iraq, 2003–2009: Origins, Developments and Prospects,” 152–76; and Egnell, “Winning “Hearts and Minds”? A Critical Analysis of Counter-Insurgency Operations in Afghanistan,” 282–303.
65. Selth, “Ireland and Insurgency,” 303–04; and Gannon, The Irish Imperial Service, 99–100, 119–121.
66. At the tactical level, the British officers in Ireland during the War of independence recalled even earlier precedents, such as the Boer war and Bengalese terrorist movement: Sheehan, op. cit., 94, 97, 103, 139, 174.
67. It is not surprising that the analysis of the situation in Northern Ireland by the mid-1970s had led Andrew Mack himself, the author of asymmetric conflict theory, to the idea that further developments were highly likely to mean the withdrawal of the British army from that province. In fact, the troops gave way to the local police on the edge of the fight against the IRA but did not leave the island. The priority of the tasks changed, but the military presence, as one of the necessary factors for stabilization of the situation in Northern Ireland, remained till the end of the ‘Troubles’: and Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” 199.
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Stanislav Malkin
Stanislav Malkin Head of the Chair of World History, Law and Methods of Education, Historical Faculty, Samara State University of Social Sciences and Humanities