New biography reveals Winston Churchill’s problem with Ireland
A new biography on Winston Churchill has much to recommend it but, from a purely Irish perspective, it is disappointing, writes
The latest biography of Winston Churchill by Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, has been widely acclaimed, but it is disappointing from a purely Irish perspective, because the author tends to gloss over Churchill’s failings in dealing with both the War of Independence and Irish neutrality during the Second World War.
As minister for war from 1919 to 1921, Churchill “attempted to crush the rebellion in the south through the use of two paramilitary forces”, notes the author. As minister, he was largely responsible for the behaviour of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries.
In fairness, the author is not uncritical. He provides an insight into how things might have been even worse if Churchill had been allowed to deal with Irish protesters as he desired.
“I see no objection from a military point of view,” Churchill argued on July 1, 1920, “to airplanes being dispatched with definite orders in each particular case to disperse them by nmachine gun fire or bombs, using of course no more force than is necessary to scatter and stampede them.”
One of the initial outrages — the sacking of Balbriggan and beating to death two republican prisoners on the night of September 21, 1920 — actually shocked field marshall Henry Wilson.
“Churchill saw very little harm in this,” Wilson noted in his diary, “but it horrifies me.”
Comparing the Auxiliaries and Black and Tans with “anti-gangster units of the New York and Chicago police departments”, Roberts argues that Churchill justified using them to “meet terror with terror”.
However, those forces often reacted blindly, striking at totally innocent individuals. They “were so violent and ill-disciplined”, notes Roberts, that they repulsed the Irish people and undermined the British campaign.
“In December 1920, the Black and Tans burned down a large area of the city of Cork, driving moderates into the arms of Sinn Féin,” he writes. Michael Collins thought Churchill and Field Marshall Henry Wilson were “chiefly responsible for the whole reign of terror”.
“Churchill was much more responsible for the heavy-handedness of the Black and Tans in the south or the B Specials in the north than Henry Wilson, who was a critic of both forces,” Paul Bew, professor of Irish politics at Queen’s University, Belfast, concluded in his 2016 book, Churchill and Ireland.
When Churchill suggested arming around 20,000 Orangemen — mainly B Specials — to relieve British troops in the North, for instance, Wilson warned it would lead to “civil war and savage reprisals”.
It would also cause difficulties with the US and the Vatican. “Winston does not realise these things in the least and is a perfect idiot as a statesman,” said Wilson.
That a bellicose soldier such as Wilson actually adopted a more statesmanlike view than Churchill on this issue must be as damning an assessment that anyone could make of any purported statesman.
Although Roberts later cites Bew to support arguments in relation to Irish neutrality, he essentially glosses over the failings that it highlighted during the earlier period.
“Once it was clear that his attempt to crush the IRA had resoundingly failed, Churchill was the first to champion a wide and generous offer to the south,” contends Roberts. He does not back up this conclusion with convincing evidence.
Churchill did play an active part in negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but serious questions must be asked about his role in the lead up to the Civil War. Many, including Baron Bew, believe Collins was behind the murder of Henry Wilson in London in June 1922, and Churchill essentially used this to spark the war.
Contending that those occupying the Four Courts were responsible for the murder of Wilson, Churchill sent
Collins, the head of the provisional government, an ultimatum to clear out the Four Courts.
When asked, that same day, in parliament about 17 Loyalists who police had taken hostage in Belcoo, Co Fermanagh, in March 1922, Churchill replied: “We have proof that some of them are being held at present at Athlone.”
Athlone was under the control of Collins, so Churchill was asked what he was doing about the men being held there.
“I am addressing the provisional government on the whole matter,” he said.
The British army had gone into Pettigo, Co Donegal, and seized 15 soldiers of the provisional government on June 4, 1922. Those men were brought to Northern Ireland, where they were essentially held to compel the provisional government to release the Belcoo policemen.
“I think they are very anxious to get back their own 15 men of the Free State forces whom we are at present holding,” Churchill told parliament. He essentially admitted that the men taken at Pettigo were being held as hostages.
Bew believed Churchill was aware of the Big Fellow’s likely involvement in the Wilson murder, and was using this “to make Collins move” against the Four Courts, which was what ignited the Civil War. But Roberts ignores the whole thing.
Churchill’s antics in Ireland during the early 1920s were, of course, only a small part of his overall involvement in international affairs, as was his later attitude to Irish neutrality, but those issues have been seriously distorted. This detracts from the overall biography.
Roberts unquestioningly accepts Churchill’s distorted views on the denial of Irish bases to Britain during the Second World War.
“Owing to the actions of Mr de Valera,” said Churchill, “the approaches which the southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by hostile aircraft and U-boats.”
When the Royal Oak was sunk on the night of October 14, 1939, at Scapa Flow, with the loss of 1,234 lives, Churchill called for the seizure of Berehaven. This was absurd, because that Cork port could no more have protected Scapa Flow, off the north-east coast of Scotland, than it could have protected Pearl Harbour against the Japanese.
Churchill was just using the issue to detract attention from the drowning of 833 boy sea-cadets on the Royal Oak that night.
In 1938, Chamberlain renounced Britain’s right to Irish bases in order to secure the goodwill of de Valera. Following the outbreak of hostilities with Germany, de Valera quietly assured the British that he would provide all possible help short of war.
After the fall of France in 1940, the British shipping route around the south of Ireland became so vulnerable to attack from German aircraft based in France that the shipping moved around Northern Ireland instead, as it was not nearly as exposed to German aircraft.
De Valera helped the British by authorising an extraordinary degree of security and intelligence co-operation, and by secretly allowing them to set up radar stations in Cork and Donegal, as well as permitting British aircraft based on Lough Erne to fly directly over Donegal to and from the Atlantic.
In addition, the Admiralty was secretly allowed to station an armed tug at Killybegs for air-sea rescue purposes.
In 1943, Churchill and US president Franklin D Roosevelt toyed with the idea of asking for Irish ports, as a means of discrediting de Valera for being nunhelpful. But British and American service authorities blocked the idea. They warned that de Valera had been so helpful that he might give them the ports, which would be a liability to the Allied war effort.
The Allies did not really want the ports, but the issue was later grossly distorted in a naked effort to deceive the British and American people.
Roberts has allowed himself to be similarly deceived in this biography, which is a great pity because the book does have a lot to recommend it.
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