Conscription Crisis of 1918

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The Conscription Crisis of 1918 stemmed from a move by the Government of the United Kingdom to impose conscription in Ireland, and contributed to pivotal events in early 20th century politics in Ireland, galvanising popular support for parties favouring separation from the United Kingdom.

1 Background
2 The Conferences and pledge
3 Strikes and other actions in Ireland
4 The "plot" and other reactions
5 After effects
6 Notes
7 Contemporaneous quotes
8 See also
9 Footnotes
- 9.1 References and external links

[edit] Background

From early 1918 the British Army were dangerously short on troops for the Western Front. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, German troops began an advance along a forty mile front in France, with an advantage in numbers of four to one, the Allied front collapsing totally.

In addressing this challenge, the British Government turned to conscription in Ireland, as an untapped reservoir of manpower for the battlefields. Despite opposition from the entire Irish Party, conscription for Ireland was voted through at Westminster.

Though large numbers of Irish men had willingly joined Irish Brigades of the New British Army on the outbreak of war, the likelihood of enforced conscription created a backlash - particularly as the enactment of the Home Rule bill (as previously recommended in March by the Irish Convention) was controversially linked with a "dual policy" enactment of the Military Draft Bill. The linking of conscription and Home Rule outraged the Irish Parties at Westminster, who walked out of in protest and returned to Ireland to organise opposition.

[edit] The Conferences and pledge

The 9 Anti-Conscription Committee members
Griffith, de Valera, Dillon
Devlin, O'Brien W, Johnson
Egan, Healy, O'Brien WX

On April 18, 1918, acting on a resolution of Dublin Corporation, the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Lawrence O'Neill) held a conference at the Mansion House, Dublin. The Irish Anti-Conscription Committee was convened to devise plans to resist conscription, and represented different sections of nationalist opinion: John Dillon and Joseph Devlin for the Irish Parliamentary Party, Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith for Sinn Féin, William O'Brien and Timothy Michael Healy for the All-for-Ireland Party and Michael Egan, Thomas Johnson and W X O'Brien representing Labour and the Trade Unions.

On the evening of the 18th April (the same day), the Catholic bishops were holding their annual meeting at Maynooth (with a similar agenda, to deliver a "Statement on Conscription") and they met a delegation from the Mansion House Conference.

From both assemblies came an anti-conscription pledge to be taken at the church door of every parish the next Sunday, April 21, which read: "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."

[edit] 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 general strike was called in protest, and on April 23 1918, work was stopped in railways, docks, factories, mills, theatres, cinemas, trams, public services, shipyards, newspapers, shops, and even Government munitions factories. The strike was described as "complete and entire, an unprecedented event outside the continental countries".

In the following weeks, anti-conscription rallies were held nation wide, with 15,000 people attending a meeting in County Roscommon at the start of May. John Dillon, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and Eamon de Valera of Sinn Féin shared the platform in a united cause. This in itself is notable as, while sharing nationalist views, Dillon and de Valera's parties had previously been divided in opinion as to the best means for devolution from the UK, and would subsequently be divided by the Anglo-Irish Treaty. However, all were galvanised to collective action on the conscription issue.

Immediately following, Dublin's Lord Mayor, Laurence O'Neill, in a letter to the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson called for support against conscription: 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 statue, 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.

[edit] The "plot" and other reactions

Dillon on platform during Roscommon anti-conscription rally in 1918

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 were publicly perceived to be key instigators of anti-government and anti-conscription feeling, the viceroy Lord French, claiming evidence of a treasonable plot between Sinn Féin and the Germans, arrested seventy-three Sinn Féin leaders, including Griffith and de Valera, on the 17th May. This heavy-handed response by the Dublin Castle authorities did little to defuse the situation however. (In fact, a lack of evidence meant the "German plot" was little believed in the UK, Ireland or the US, and aggravated opinion and Sinn Féin support.)

Simultaneously a more subtle effort (and possibly with more potential for success) 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 persuade Irish Nationalists to join the French army (initially as labourers in specialised battalions).

Hay's plan relied on the power of the Catholic church in Ireland (and empathy among Irish Catholics for German occupation of Catholic Belgium and France), 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.

The plan simply called for a letter (drafted by Hay, and approved by Edward Shortt) 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 Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Logue through these means, the "Hay Plan" was delayed (and ultimately stymied) by complications in diplomatic channels and by political rivalries.

As a result, recruitment efforts through September and October continued to have very limited success, and by the armistice in November (effectively marking the end of WWI) conscription remaining unimplemented in Ireland.

[edit] After effects

Completely ineffectual as a means to bolster battalions in France, the events surrounding the Conscription Crisis were also 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, increased support for Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin association (in the public perception at least) with the 1916 Easter Rising and the anti-conscription movement directly and indirectly led to their landslide victory over (and effective elimination of) the Irish Parliamentary Party, the formation of the first Dáil Éireann and in turn to the outbreak of the Anglo-Irish War in 1919. (See: Aftermath of World War I - United Kingdom and Irish (UK) general election, 1918).

[edit] Notes

It should be noted that 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.

Support and enlistment was more prominent amongst Irish unionist and Protestant traditions, however, nationalist and Catholic enlistment was also common as the war was seen to be fought in defence of smaller Catholic countries (like occupied Belgium). In this cause, those who would later become detractors of conscription (including John Dillon, William O'Brien and the Catholic bishops) were prominent on recruitment platforms at the outbreak of the war.

In all, approaching 200,000* Irishmen served with British forces during the Great War, and, of the 680,000 fatalities from Britain, some 40,000* were from Ireland. (* Sources differ slightly on the number of Irish who served with allied forces, and on the number of dead. Averages are used here ^[1]).

[edit] Contemporaneous quotes

"...it seems to me a strangely wanton thing that England, for the sake of 50,000 Irish soldiers, is prepared to hollow another trench between the countries and fill it with blood."
—W.B. Yeats in a letter to Lord Haldane

"...women and children will stand in front of their men and receive the bullets, rather than let them be taken to the front."
—Augusta, Lady Gregory