26 March 2012: Atrocities of War

As the war progressed and the Republicans became less and less able to sustain the guerrilla tactics they were employing, the resorted to other tactics to compensate for the lack of success that they were so obviously experiencing. One of the tactics they resorted to was destruction of public infrastructure and sabotage. They assumed that since they couldn't gain or regain control of important cities and towns from the Free State Army, they could sabotage the public infrastructure, roads and railways, used by both the Free State Army and the citizens who were not particularly aligned with Republicans or the Free State Army. This could have dealt a major blow to the Free State Army because of supply lines and communication between the various forces who were spread around the country but I do not think it had any type of significant impact on the army because of the inefficiency and disorganization of the Republicans attacks. Not only did they destroy infrastructure in an attempt to gain some form of superiority over the Free State Army, they also tried to demoralize and set them back by burning the homes of some of the members. The Republicans employed these tactics because they were desperate. While the Free State Army was seemingly in control of the war and as a result the country, they were not above committing atrocious acts of war in the latter parts of the war.

The Free State Army stooped to a new low after the Republicans resorted to sabotage and destruction of public infrastructure. The Free State Army resorted to executions and assassinations instead of diplomacy or conventional warfare. The first execution took place on November 17 when five men were shot and killed by a firing squad. The Free State Army were executing Republican sympathizers in addition to the Republican prisoners. They executed Robert Erskine Childers, who was an acclaimed author and treaty negotiator. Total, the Free State authorized 77 official executions of Republican prisoners throughout the course of the war. This is only the number of official executions authorized. It is impossible to know how many other executions there were that were not authorized or sanctioned. In response to the executions, the Republicans assassinated Seán Hales, a political adviser of the Free State. After this happened, the Free State retaliated by executing four prominent Republicans who had been held since the first week of the war. Not only did they execute these four men, Free State forces in County Kerry executed nine Republican soldiers who had been captured. They were tied to a landmine which was then detonated. The blast killed eight of the prisoners while one man was thrown clear from the explosion and was able to escape. This was a horrific time in Irish history and is credited as a reason there is bitterness in Irish politics.

As the war progressed and drew to a close, it became clear that the Republicans would be unable to sustain the guerrilla warfare they were employing because of a gradual loss of support. The Free State did no have this problem though, as they were supported by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church deemed the Free State as the lawful government of the country and therefore supported them entirely. This support led to hostility among some of the Republicans but they really did not do anything about it. After all of the executions and retaliations, it seemed as if the war was finally drawing to a close as the Republicans simply could not sustain their war effort. This led to the end of the war and a ceasefire, which I will talk about in the next post. 

21 March 2012: Tactics and Strategies

As I discussed in the last post, both sides had to adopt fairly different tactics and strategies because of various advantages or disadvantages they had based on the number of troops, supplies and munitions available to them. The Republicans had more troops and a greater tactical advantage based on controlled land but lacked a defined command structure. Regardless of how many troops they had or how much better the land they controlled was, no organization among the rank and file would prove to be a major weakness of the Republicans. As mentioned in the last post, the Republicans were forced to adopt a defensive strategy throughout the war because of a lack of offensive capability in the form of artillery. Even though the Republicans had a numerical advantage at first, this advantage was quickly dissolved because of the charismatic leaders of the Free State Army, Michael Collins and his commanders. Collins was able to secure men and munitions as well as officers from Britain. Since both sides had established themselves and made what they were fighting for known, it was only a matter of time before fighting broke out.

While it would seem the the Free State Army had superiority because they controlled Dublin, this did not stop the Republicans from attacking many other important Irish cities. The Republicans controlled Cork, Limerick and Waterford but were not equipped to hold out in a traditional military style against the better trained and equipped Free State Army. The leader of the Republicans, Liam Lynch, hoped the Republicans could simply hold the cities they already controlled long enough to renegotiate a treaty with Britain. This did not happen as planned though because the Free State Army took the cities controlled by the Republicans fairly easily in August of 1922. Michael Collins and the other leaders of the Free State Army planned a nationwide offensive to take many of the key cities that the Republicans controlled. He sent forces to attack Limerick in the west, Waterford in the south-east, Cork and Kerry in the south and Mayo in the west, as evidenced by the map. Limerick and Waterford were wrestled from Republican control on July 20 while Cork was taken on August 10 and Mayo was taken sometime after that. The Republicans were ill-equipped for this type of concentrated and organized attack and did not put up much resistance. 

Since the Republicans knew they could not match the military might of the Free State Army, Lynch ordered a new style of fighting; guerrilla warfare. This style is quite unique in that the various groups of soldiers would wait for the opportune moment and strike the enemy when they were most vulnerable. This strategy was fairly successful at first but the Republicans could not sustain this type of conflict because of the toll it took on the soldiers. From a Republican standpoint, it was successful because a group of men managed to kill Michael Collins in an ambush in August of 1922. This left the Free State Army in the hands of General Richard Mulcahy. It seemed as if the Free State Army might collapse because of the death of both the military leader, Collins, and the government leader, W. T. Cosgrave, who had died of a brain hemorrhage just 10 days before Collins was killed. However, the death of Collins increased the bitterness and fury of the members of the Free State. As time progressed, the Republicans could not sustain the guerrilla tactics they were employing and suffered heavy losses, both to fighting and to the harsh winter that had set in. Eventually, they resorted to sabotage and destruction of public infrastructure. This downward spiral of the Republicans led to atrocities and executions against the Free State Army, which I will discuss in greater detail next week. 

14 March 2012: Establishment of Land and Armies

As with the American Civil War, the country was not unified under a single banner or allegiance. There were people from both sides of the fighting who adamantly believed that they were correct and were willing to fight and die in order to preserve the ideals that they believed in. One major difference between the Irish Civil War and the American Civil War was the in Ireland, there were not defined areas that were unified. For example, in the American Civil War, it was pretty much the north against the south. This was not so in Ireland. There were sections of support for each group spread throughout the whole country, as shown by the map to the right. The anti-treaty forces essentially maintained a perimeter around the border of Ireland while the pro-treaty forces occupied the central area of the country. It is fairly apparent that the anti-treaty forces had the advantage in this situation. These divisions were derived from the pro-treaty and anti-treaty forces choosing a side and leader to support, as I talked about in the last post. People who supported the treaty officially formed the National Army, which was perhaps more commonly known as Free State Army. Their opponents often called them "Staters." People who were anti-treaty named themselves Republicans while the members of the Free State Army preferred to call them "Irregulars." The Republicans claimed that they were defending the Irish Republic, which was created after the Eater Rising in 1916. The were defending it because of how it had been seemingly abandoned when the Free State was accepted, as I discussed in the last post. Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera were the primary players in this action. These two groups emerged from the IRA, a once unified force that secured independence and secession from Britain for Ireland during the Irish War of Independence. The IRA was now split into pro-treaty and anti-treaty forces.

As shown in the map above, the anti-treaty forces enjoyed both tactical and numerical advantage. They outnumbered the pro-treaty forces by over 2 to 1. Neither army was very strong because the IRA had sustained losses in the Irish War of Independence as well as many soldiers being recruited by the British. While the anti-treaty forces had tactical and numerical advantage, they were at a great disadvantage because of the lack of a defined command structure. As a result, they had no clear strategy and insufficient arms. They did not have enough rifles for each soldier so most soldiers were armed with handguns or shotguns. Not only did they not have sufficient arms for the soldiers, they did not have a substantial amount of armored vehicles. They managed to acquire a few armored cars from the British as they were withdrawing from the country, who were anticipating trouble. Despite all of these troubles, perhaps the most damning aspect of the anti-treaty forces' troubles was the fact that they had no artillery. This meant that they were at a severe disadvantage while attacking. In fact, because of having no artillery, they were forced to take a defensive approach during the course of the war.

While the pro-treaty forces were at first at a numerical disadvantage, this problem was quickly solved by Michael Collins and his commanders, who were able to secure help from many forces, as well as supplies from Britain. Not only did Collins secure munitions and other supplies from Britain, he was able to recruit British officers for their tactical knowledge. The Republican forces used this propaganda to claim that the Free State Army was just a proxy for Britain. This was simply not true though, as most soldiers had no combat experience  in either the First World War or the Irish War of Independence. As the opposing sides organized themselves and started to acquire munitions and supplies, an ugly was imminent. Next week, I will discuss the various methods and tactics employed by both sides as the war progressed.