In April 1923 the Irish Civil War was effectively over. The anti-Treaty IRA‘s commander-in-chief Liam Lynch, who had sought to prolong the war long after it was a lost cause, was shot dead in the Knockmealdown Mountains on April 10th. Some days earlier most of the anti-Treaty executive had been rounded up and incarcerated.
A secret National Army missive from the time concluded that it was the “beginning of the end as far as the irregular campaign is concerned”.
It is an established historical fact that the Free State could not have won the Civil War without British aid. It was two British 18 pounder guns that started the war when they were fired on the anti-Treaty garrison occupying the Four Courts in June 1922.
Serving Irish colonel and author Dr Gareth Prendergast discovered details in Winston Churchill’s gargantuan archive about the scale of British military aid to the pro-Treaty side.
A note dated September 2nd, 1922 details the inventory sent to the Provisional Government (it wasn’t the Free State Government until December 1922) down to the last bullet, 4,745,848 to be precise along with 27,400 rifles, 6,606 revolvers, 246 Lewis machine guns and nine 18 pounder guns with 2,160 shells. In addition, the Free State forces were given nearly 15,000 rifles which belonged to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
Even that was not enough with the Free State side demanding 10,000 more rifles in February 1923 complaining that many of the RIC weapons they received were “very much used” and they were down to a bare inventory.
Churchill, as secretary of state for the colonies, was in charge of ensuring the Anglo-Irish Treaty was implemented. Supplying the National Army from the mountains of surplus equipment left after the first World War was a much cheaper and more politically palatable way of enforcing the Treaty than the alternative which he contemplated in the aftermath of the assassination of the former head of the British army, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP, in June 1922.
Then Churchill was seized with a “feverish impetuosity”, according to accounts while erroneously blaming the anti-Treaty side for the assassination. He contemplated shelling the Four Courts from Royal Navy guns. He was talked down from his high dudgeon by General Sir Nevil Macready, the officer commanding British forces in Ireland, who recognised that restarting the War of Independence would only suck his country into a morass from which it had extracted itself with great reputational damage.
Freedom, though, isn’t free. With the war moving towards its inevitable conclusion, the British thought it prudent on April 16th, 1923 to send what might be considered in modern parlance as a “gentle reminder” to its Free State equivalent that it owed it money for two Rolls Royce armoured cars and a pair of Vickers guns and equipment.
The sum involved £5,301,19,10d is the equivalent today of €435,000. The invoice was sent by Lord Devonshire, Churchill’s successor as secretary of state for the colonies, who assumed the role in October 1922.
He reminded the Irish governor-general Tim Healy that the cars had been delivered in October of the previous year by “special arrangement” and on the basis they would be paid for in cash.
Rolls Royce armoured cars were a valuable addition to the National Army’s arsenal. They were ideal for urban environments as the anti-Treaty IRA‘s small arms fire were ineffective against them. One, the Slievenamon, accompanied Michael Collins on his fateful last trip which ended at Beal na Bláth. It was rescued, refurbished in 2011 and put on display at the Curragh Military Museum.
There is no evidence that the invoice was ever paid, according to Prendergast whose book Clear, Hold, Build: How the Free State won the Irish Civil War is an examination of how the National Army successfully defeated the anti-Treaty IRA in just 11 months.
The received historical wisdom is that the Pro-Treaty side won the war because of British support and the National Army’s ability to very quickly recruit ex-first World War servicemen to the cause.
Prendergast posits that it is not as simple as that and that the Civil War was won by very good political and military leadership. History is replete with examples where dominant powers lose despite superior manpower and equipment mostly because, without the support of the people, they are bound to fail.
Though the military doctrine of counter-insurgency of clear, hold, build wasn’t properly formed at the time, he believed the National Army adopted an exemplar of it by clearing areas of anti-Treaty fighters, holding those areas against counterattacks and at the same time building a consensus in favour of the Irish Free State.
This was achieved despite the evident brutality of much of the Free State government’s actions which included the execution of 81 Republican prisoners.
The National Army succeeded where the British had failed in turning the rebels out of their strongholds because, unlike the British, they knew the terrain, the hideouts and the people involved. The anti-Treaty IRA had alienated the people by its destruction of vital infrastructure most notably roads and railways; the National Army won the confidence of the people by repairing the damage.
The book has attracted a lot of interest in the US military which is still developing its counterinsurgency strategy after its disaster in Iraq when it won an easy military victory, declared mission accomplished only to be a hit by an insurgency which lasted years.
None other than General David Petraeus, who orchestrated the “surge” in Iraq in 2007 that was deemed a success after years of chaos has endorsed the book as an “exceptionally readable case study”.
