IRA: Back Underground

Nothing demoralizes professional revolutionaries more than the victory of a revolution. In 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, which marked the beginning of a new, free Ireland. But the treaty was a compromise that both the English and the Irish were forced to make. And any compromise has the unpleasant feature that neither of the parties to the agreement is completely satisfied.

Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead - Michael Collins' counterpart
Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and the man who managed to establish a warm relationship with Michael Collins during the negotiations, recalled that after the signing he said to the "Big Guy":
To which Collins responded:
And you didn't have to be Cassandra to know that this would happen.
The first Irish leader to take up arms against Collins for the treaty was his old comrade in arms, Eamon de Valera. In fact, there was something to take up arms about: dominion status required an oath to the King of Great Britain. For a large number of people who had been fighting for years against that same king, this point alone was unacceptable! And then there was the division of Ireland: six counties of the province of Ulster (populated by Protestants, but which Irish Catholic cared about that?) remained part of Great Britain. Collins, agreeing to their separation, expected that this piece of territory would be unviable without the rest of the island, but he was wrong, because it was the most industrially developed piece...

Michael Collins at the National Army Review
The IRA also split: some of the old fighters, personally loyal to Collins, became the backbone of the Irish National Army. But the majority of the IRA opposed the treaty and refused to obey Collins and his staff. They elected their own government, and... The army began to do what it was good at: seizing buildings, waging guerrilla warfare against the Free State government. As usual in such cases, 200 fighters seized the Four Courts building in Dublin. Michael Collins... As decisive as he was in the fight against the British Empire, he was just as indecisive in his actions against the IRA. You can understand the "Big Guy" - his opponents were not just former comrades, he was forced to fight his brainchild.

The Irish Free State National Army on the march
Collins tried to combat the split with persuasion, negotiations, and debates on the future constitution of the Free State. Meanwhile, fighting broke out again in the north, this time initiated by Protestant loyalists who wanted to remain part of Great Britain. Here, Catholics were a minority, but it was they who began to get into trouble for the actions of the IRA: more than 500 people died, 10 thousand were forced to flee, 8 thousand lost their jobs. It is worth noting that of all the leaders of Ireland, Collins was the one who was most interested in the fate of the Catholics of the North: he understood perfectly well that the "old guard" needed to be occupied with fighting the English - just so that they would stop cutting each other. And that the north of Ireland, which remained under the rule of the Crown, was an ideal place for the joint efforts of supporters and opponents of the treaty.

The Murder of Sir Henry Wilson
On June 22, 1922, Sir Henry Wilson, a First World War field marshal, Ulster landowner and Unionist politician, was assassinated in London by two IRA gunmen. Why was he killed? To provoke a British invasion! And that was exactly what it was all about: Churchill had told the “Big Boy” that if he didn’t deal with the gunmen holed up in the Four Courts building, British troops would be brought into the Free State. And he wasn’t lying: a plan had been drawn up to invade using tanks, artillery и aviationBut Collins figured it out himself...
On 27 June, the militants inside the building were given an ultimatum to leave the Four Courts. When they refused to do so, the Irish artillery (two 28-pounder guns) opened fire on 2 June. The building contained many IRA commanders, including Deputy Commander for Personnel Joe McKelvie and Quartermaster General Liam Mellows, and 18-180 militants from the 200st and XNUMXnd Battalions of the Dublin Brigade. The defenders were armed with rifles, five Thompson submachine guns and two Lewis machine guns, as well as a Rebel armoured car.

"Four Courts" under fire
The shelling was ineffective, and the British gave the "Big Boy" a couple more guns, and also offered to give him 60-pound howitzers and carry out an air strike on the building. Collins refused both, but on June 29 his troops went on the assault. At the cost of losing 3 men killed and 14 wounded, the soldiers captured the east wing of the building. Among the rebel losses were 33 prisoners and a knocked out armoured car. The IRA tried to make a diversionary attack, bringing part of the Dublin brigade to positions in the O'Connell Street area, but having come under fire from government troops, they retreated, losing one of the opposition leaders, Cathal Brugh, killed.

The Rolls-Royce Armored Car: British Armored Glamour
After this, the anti-treaty forces retreated to the south of the country, and Collins regained control over Dublin and the central and western parts of Ireland. The IRA was finally divided: 15 thousand people were against the treaty, 7 thousand were for it. Despite the numerical superiority of the opponents, the National Army was much better armed: the IRA had 6780 rifles and several machine guns (although they managed to capture several Rolls-Royce armored cars), while Michael Collins' forces had 20 rifles, 060 machine guns, 156 8-pounder guns, 18 armored cars and 12 aircraft. But most importantly, the IRA lacked experienced commanders - most of them followed the "Big Boy", and most of the rank and file joined the organization after independence and had not smelled gunpowder. However, the same could be said about many soldiers of the National Army, but the officers... Collins actively took into his units officers from Irish regiments of the British Army who had been shot in the First World War, and even from the British.

IRA patrol on the street
The opposition organized the "Republic of Munster" with its capital in Cork. The newly-created state included the counties south of Limerick and Waterford. On July 20, government troops began an offensive against the "republic". On August 15, the capital of the rebels, Cork, fell. By the beginning of September, all territories held by opponents of the treaty were returned under government control, and the IRA units retreated to the mountains. They tried to switch to guerrilla warfare, but without the support of the local population, they fizzled out. On December 6, 1922, the parliaments of Great Britain and Ireland ratified the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and on December 17, the last British units left the territory of the Irish Free State. In January-February 1923, government troops captured several IRA commanders. On April 10, the Chief of the General Staff of the IRA, Liam Lynch, was discovered and killed during the arrest. On 27 April, de Valera offered to end the civil war in exchange for a full amnesty for all opposition participants. By 24 May, the last IRA units had folded. weapon. But the "Big Guy" didn't see it anymore...
There is no reliable information about why Michael Collins went to Cork. Some believe that he went to prepare for an offensive. According to historian Michael Hopkins, he went to negotiate with the rebel leaders. In any case, we know exactly how he responded to his friends' objections:
In Cork, he met with IRA commanders who were neutral in the civil war. Most likely, he was going to contact the rebel leaders through them. It is sometimes believed that he was with Eamon de Valera, who was in that area (although there is no evidence for this). In any case, Collins’s diary contains a peace plan: the opponents must accept the will of the people, the provisional government remains the guardian of this will, and refrain from taking decisive action... If the opponent does not accept these conditions, then “all the blood will be on their hands».

The place of death of Michael Collins
In the town of Bandon, Collins' column stopped to get directions. The man they asked the question to, Dinny Long, was a member of the local IRA cell. He reported "to the right place" and it was decided to ambush the Big Boy's unit on the road from Bandon to Cork. That evening, as Collins and his men were returning to Cork, five men from Liam Deasy's unit were waiting for them at their position and opened fire. The battle lasted 20 minutes, and its only victim was Michael Collins - a dum-dum bullet hit him in the head. It is not known for sure who was the shooter who sent the father of Irish independence to the next world. The most common name is Denis O'Neill, who was a sniper in the British army during the First World War. According to this version, he was the only one who fired explosive bullets, but after the battle he threw away all the remaining ammunition.
Collins' death is still the subject of a fierce "holy war" among Irish historians. Some blame de Valera, some blame British agents, and some blame one of his own soldiers who later went over to the IRA. In any case, he was a man without whom Irish independence would most likely have come much later. And what about the IRA?
And something strange happened with the IRA. The structure created to liberate Ireland should not have survived the independence itself – the very meaning of its existence was lost! But the seed that preserved this structure was planted by the Anglo-Irish Treaty itself: Northern Ireland remained, not included in the Irish Free State. Therefore, despite the fact that the IRA was outlawed by the Irish authorities, the army did not disappear. It went underground to continue its fight against Great Britain. And it found an ally in this fight. With a black solar symbol on a red flag...
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