Conscription Crisis of 1918
The Conscription Crisis of 1918 stemmed from a move by the
Background
In early 1918, the British Army was dangerously short of troops for the Western Front. In the German Spring Offensive of 1918, German troops broke through the Allied lines in several sectors of the front in France, with a local advantage in numbers of four to one, putting severe strain on the Allied armies.[1] The British Army, in one day, suffered a major setback, with the Imperial German Army over-running 250 square kilometres (98 sq mi) of territory and penetrating, at the furthest point, to a depth of seven kilometres (4+1⁄2 mi).[2] Conscription in Great Britain had already been established by the Military Service Act of January 1916, which came into effect a few weeks later in March 1916. By 1918 David Lloyd George was Prime Minister, leading a coalition government, and in addressing a very grave military situation it was decided to use a new 'Military Service Bill' to extend conscription to Ireland and also to older men and further groups of workers in Britain, thus reaching untapped reserves of manpower.[3][4]
Although large numbers of Irishmen had willingly joined
The linking of conscription and Home Rule outraged the Irish nationalist parties at Westminster, including the IPP, All-for-Ireland League and others, who walked out in protest and returned to Ireland to organise opposition.[8] Despite opposition from the entire Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), conscription for Ireland was voted through at Westminster, becoming part of the 'Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918' (8 Geo. 5, c. 5).[9]
Although the crisis was unique to Ireland at the time, it followed similar campaigns in Australia (1916–17) and Canada (1917). In Australia, Irish Catholics mostly opposed conscription; in Canada (and the US), Irish Catholics supported conscription.[citation needed]
The threat of conscription resulted in a plan, proposed by Cathal Brugha, to assassinate British cabinet members in April 1918, before they could vote on conscription (or as reprisal for having done so).[10][11] Though the plan was never carried through, the stress of the plan reputedly had a significant impact on the republicans involved.[10][12]
Conferences and pledge
On 18 April 1918, acting on a resolution of
On the evening of the same day, the
The Anti-Conscription Committee and bishops proposed an anti-conscription pledge that was to be taken at the church door of every Roman Catholic parish the next Sunday, 21 April, which read:[16]
Denying the right of the British government to enforce compulsory service in this country, we pledge ourselves solemnly to one another to resist conscription by the most effective means at our disposal.
Strikes and other actions in Ireland
Following their representation at the Mansion House, the labour movement made its own immediate and distinctive contribution to the anti-conscription campaign. A one-day
In the following weeks, anti-conscription
On 11 June Dublin's Lord Mayor, Laurence O'Neill, in a letter to the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson called for support against conscription:[18]
In the fourth year of a war ostensibly begun for the defence of small nations, a law conscribing the manhood of Ireland has been passed, in defiance of the wishes of our people .... To warrant the coercive statute, no recourse was had to the electorate of Britain, much less to that in Ireland. Yet the measure was forced through within a week, despite the votes of Irish representatives and under a system of closure never applied to the debates, which established conscription for Great Britain on a milder basis.
"German plot"
Nervous of growing unrest and still with dire need to progress conscription in Ireland, Lloyd George's government undertook several initiatives to quell the backlash.
As Sinn Féin was publicly perceived to be the key instigator of anti-government and anti-conscription feeling,
Hay Plan
Simultaneously, a more subtle effort (and assessed by later historians as having more potential for success)[19] was undertaken from the offices of Lord Northcliffe under the Minister of Information. The "Hay Plan" was conceived by Stuart Hay—a British Army Captain, who was under orders to establish a proposal to work around widespread anti-conscription feeling and to persuade Irish nationalists to join the French army (initially as labourers in specialised battalions). Hay's plan relied on the power of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland (and empathy among its supporters for fellow Catholics in Belgium and France suffering from German invasion), to sway opinion:
If the church were definitely or even in a large measure converted and the support it has given to disloyal elements be not taken away but thrown on to the other side in the controversy [the conscription crisis], much would be done for the future of the peace in Ireland.
— Stuart Hay[3]
The plan simply called for a letter (drafted by Hay and approved by Edward Shortt and then Chief Secretary for Ireland) to be sent by the French Primate to the Irish bishops, requesting that they soften their opposition to conscription to aid the war effort in France.
Despite some progress in August in persuading
In France, the German Spring Offensive and its following attacks had failed by July, and the Allies counterattacked successfully at the
After-effects
By June 1918 it had become apparent to most observers in Britain and Ireland that following American entry into the war the tide of war had changed in favour of the Allied armies in Europe, and by 20 June the Government had dropped its conscription and home rule plans, given the lack of agreement of the Irish Convention. However the legacy of the crisis remained.[2]
Completely ineffectual as a means to bolster battalions in France, the events surrounding the Conscription Crisis were disastrous for the Dublin Castle authorities, and for the more moderate nationalist parties in Ireland. The delay in finding a resolution to the home rule issue, partly caused by the war, and exaggerated by the Conscription Crisis in Ireland, all increased support for Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin's association (in the public perception at least) with the 1916
This opposition also led in part to Sinn Féin being ignored by the subsequent victors at the
The crisis was also a watershed in Ulster Unionism's relations with Nationalist Ireland, as expressed by Unionist leader James Craig: "for Ulster Unionists the conscription crisis was the final confirmation that the aspirations of Nationalists and Unionists were unrecompatible. [sic]"[21]
Voluntary enlistment
The bulk of opposition to the Great War in Ireland was to compulsory conscription, not to the war nor to voluntary enlistment in the British Army. In fact, many Irish supported the war and Irish involvement.[5][22][23][24]
Support and enlistment were more prominent amongst
In all, 200,000 to 300,000[25] Irishmen served with British forces during the Great War, and, of the 680,000 fatalities from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, some 40,000 to 49,000[25] were from Ireland. In all about 12.3 per cent of Irish men of service age actually served, approximately 25 per cent of the rate in the rest of the UK; 57 per cent of them were Roman Catholics.[26]
See also
- Conscription in Ireland
- Conscription Crisis of 1917 in Canada
- 1918 in Ireland (for dates and timeline)
- History of Ireland (1801–1922)
- Aftermath of World War I – United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
References
- ISBN 1-85532-157-2.
- ^ ISBN 0-415-17420-1
- ^ a b c Hennessy, Dave. "The Hay Plan & Conscription in Ireland During WW1". Waterford County Museum. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
- S2CID 162360809.
- ^ a b c BBC – The forgotten soldiers (Article highlighting pre- and post-war attitudes to participation of Irish in Great War)
- ^ a b c Dave Hennessy (2004). The Hay Plan & Conscription in Ireland During WW1, p.5 [1]
- S2CID 162360809.
- ^ Ward, Alan J. (1974). Lloyd George and the 1918 Irish Conscription Crisis. The Historical Journal, Vol. XVII, no. 1.
- ISBN 9781317801474. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ^ a b "Cathal Brugha: A very complex patriot". independent.ie. Independent News & Media. 11 December 2015.
- ^ "An invaluable outsider's account of the Easter Rising from the inside". irishtimes.com. Irish Times. 3 April 2015.
- ^ "Statement by Michael Rock (National Activities 1917–1921" (PDF). Bureau of Military History. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
Happily, the occasion for shooting never arose, as the King never gave his consent to the Conscription Act. Our men returned from London all right, but they had aged considerably. They had undergone an awful ordeal
- ^ Dave Hennessy (2004). The Hay Plan & Conscription in Ireland During WW1, p.4 [2]
- ISBN 9780192852717.
- T. M. Healy, K. C. (1918). Letters and Leaders of my Day. Personal letters. Entry labelled "Chapelizod, 1st April, 1918."[3]
- ISBN 978-0-415-17420-6.[4]
- ISBN 978-0-86278-194-1. Archived from the originalon 12 February 2004.
- McNeill, Ronald John (2004). Ulster's Stand For Union. Project Gutenberg eBook.[5]
- ^ Jerome aan de Wiel (1998). "The 'Hay Plan': an account of Anglo-French recruitment efforts in Ireland, August 1918". The Sword. XXI. Military History Society of Ireland: 434.
- ISBN 9789004264571.
- ISBN 0-415-17420-1
- ISBN 978-0199590582.
- ^ Carney, Denise. "Irish Soldiers in the First World War (Somme)". www.taoiseach.gov.ie. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
- ^ David Fitzpatrick, Militarism in Ireland 1900–1922, in Thomas Bartlet, Keith Jeffrey, ed. A Military History of Ireland, p386
- ^ a b As noted by the statistics published by the Department of the Taoiseach ("Irish Soldiers in the First World War"), the numbers of Irish who served (and casualties amongst those) vary considerably. Jeffery gives a figure of 210,000 enlisted, and at least 35,000 dead. While the Irish National War Memorial notes 300,000 served, and 49,400 dead.
- ISBN 9780198207146.
Further reading
- Greenhalgh, Elizabeth. "David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and the 1918 Manpower Crisis." Historical Journal 50#2 (2007): 397–421.
- Grigg, John. Lloyd George: War Leader, 1916–1918 (2002) pp 465–88
- Jaan De Wiel, Jérôme. The Catholic Church in Ireland, 1914–1918: War and Politics (Irish Academic Press, 2003)
- Joesten, Daniel McKenna. "A Declaration of War: The Press and the Irish Conscription Crisis of 1918." Utah Historical Review 3 (2013): 27+ online
- Karsten, Peter. "Irish soldiers in the British army, 1792–1922: suborned or subordinate?." Journal of Social History (1983): 31–64. in JSTOR
- Ward, Alan J. "Lloyd George and the 1918 Irish Conscription Crisis," Historical Journal, (1974) 17#1 pp. 107–129 in JSTOR
External links
- Hansard Indexes:
- Military Service Bill (entries for 1918 relate to the Irish bill)
- Military Service (No. 2) Act 1918
- The Hay Plan & Conscription In Ireland During WW1 Dave Hennessy
- Dublin and the Great War