Civil Wars Involving The States And Peoples Of Europe

"As another instance of the working out of themes, the early years of the Russian Revolution and the revolutionary regime proved crucial in the developing attitudes and experience of individuals who were to play a key role in the post-1945 period, most notably Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator from 1924 until his death in 1953. Similarly, as British Secretary for War in 1918–20, Winston Churchill, later Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955, sought to strengthen and sustain the war effort against the Communists during the Russian Civil War. This effort entailed British commitments to the new states of the area, such as Finland."

"Moreover, the Whites had foreign support. The Czech Legion had been formed by Czech and Slovak nationalists to fight on the Russian side against Austria-Hungary and at the outbreak of the Revolution numbered around 35,000 men. Determined to continue their fight for independence, the Legion's commanders decided to travel eastwards, along the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a view to crossing the Pacific, North America and the Atlantic and rejoining the fray on the Western Front. They took around 15,000 men with them. When the Bolsheviks at Chelyabinsk sought to disarm them the Czechs fought back. They then joined forces with the Socialist Revolutionaries in Samara, helping them to establish a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (known as the Komuch) as a rival government to Lenin's. Between May and June, the Czechs swept eastwards, capturing Novo-Nikolaevsk, Penza, Syzran, Tomsk, Omsk, Samara and finally Vladivostok. Meanwhile, Russia's former allies sent expeditionary forces, whose primary aim was to keep Russia in the war. The British landed troops at Archangel and Murmansk, as well as at Vladivostok; the French sent men to Odessa, the Americans to Vladivostok. The Allies also supplied the White armies with weapons and other supplies. The Japanese seized the opportunity to march across the Amur River from Manchuria. Meanwhile, the cities that were supposed to be the headquarters of the Revolution emptied as factories closed and supplies of food and fuel dried up. When Denikin called on all the White forces to converge on Moscow in July 1918, it seemed more than likely that the Bolshevik regime would be overthrown."

"The same problems, of defeat at the hands of Germany, political division and social strain, weakened the Romanovs’ republican Social Democratic replacement, and this weakness provided the opportunity for a Bolshevik (Soviet Communist) coup in Russia later in 1917. The victory of the Bolsheviks over domestic foes and foreign intervention in the subsequent Russian Civil War (1918–21) ensured that their regime would not be short-lived, as for example was Communist rule in Hungary in 1919. The victory also furthered the identification of the Soviet regime with struggle, as well as giving such struggle a specific character. The war provided the regime with a strong rationale for opposition to Western states, notably the leading European empires, Britain and France, as well as the USA and, indeed, Japan."

"More of the literature looked for continuity between the Soviet Union and Romanov Russia, and notably with the expansionism of both, for example the search for warm-water ports. Yet, as with changes in other aspects of Russian life, for example the countryside, Communism provided, alongside elements of continuity, new ideology and direction for geopolitical drives as well as renewed energy. Communism ensured that there was a Leninist policy for international relations that was very different to the liberal internationalism supported by President Woodrow Wilson of the USA. Moreover, the resulting ideological divisions had major consequences for the practice, as well as content, of international relations."

"This position by the Leninists of the necessity for a dictatorship to protect the revolution was not proven in the Civil War which followed the Russian revolution; in fact without support of the Anarchists and other left-wing forces, along with the Russian people, the Bolshevik government would have been defeated. And then true to any dictatorship, it turned around and wiped out the Russian and Ukrainian Anarchist movements, along with their left-wing opponents like the and Social revolutionaries. Even ideological opponents in the Bolshevik party were imprisoned and put to death."

"Aware that to establish a solid political base and carry out his revolutionary program he needed time, in March 1918 Lenin had his lieutenants sign at Brest-Litovsk a highly unpopular peace treaty with the Germans, Austrians, Turks, and Bulgarians in which he surrendered vast territories. And he unleashed a civil war in Russia as a prelude to the worldwide revolution, his ultimate objective. The Bolsheviks subsequently liked to blame the civil war that ravaged Russia for three years, claiming millions of lives, on Russian reactionaries and their foreign supporters. But, as we have noted, the transformation of the war from a conflict between nations to one between classes had been a central plank in the Bolshevik platform long before 1917. Trotsky admitted that much when he wrote, “Soviet authority is organized civil war.” In fact, it may be said that the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in order to make civil war."

"There were times when our country was in even more difficult straits than today. Recall the year 1918, when we celebrated the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Three-quarters of our country was at that time in the hands of foreign invaders. The Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Urals, Siberia and the Far East were temporarily lost to us. We had no allies, we had no Red Army - we had only just begun to form it; there was a shortage of food, of armaments, of clothing for the army. Fouteen states were pressing on our country. But we did not despond, we did not lose heart. In the fire of war we forged the Red Army and converted our country into a military camp. The spirit of the great Lenin animated us in the war against the invaders. And what happened? We routed the invaders, recovered all our lost territory, and achieved victory. Today the position of our country is far better than it was twenty-three years ago. Our country is now much richer than it was twenty-three years ago as regards industry, food and raw materials. We now have allies who together with us are maintaining a united front against against the German robbers. We enjoy the sympathy and support of all the nations of Europe who have fallen under Hitler's tyranny. We now have a splendid army and a plendid navy, who are staunchly defending the liberty and independence of our country. We experience no serious shortage of food, or of armaments or of army clothing. Our entire country, all the peoples of our country, support our Army and our Navy, helping them to smash the invading hordes of German fascists. Our reserves of manpower are inexhaustibe. The spirit of the great Lenin and his victorious banner now animate us in this patriotic war just as they did twenty-three years ago."

"The history of Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1920 need not detain us. Suffice it to say that the Communists—the name the Bolsheviks adopted in 1918—won the civil war, in part because they controlled the populous center of the country, where the bulk of its industrial (and military) assets were located, in part because the Western powers extended to their opponents, known as “Whites,” only halfhearted support. In the course of the civil war and soon after its conclusion, the regime reconquered most of the non-Russian borderlands—the Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Central Asia—which had previously separated themselves. These were merged with Soviet Russia to form, in 1924, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. All the territories of the new empire were ruled, in fact if not in theory, by the same Russian Communist Party with headquarters in Moscow. Its branches penetrated every segment of organized life, serving, to use a term coined by Mussolini, who would model his Fascist rule on Lenin’s, as the “capillary organization of the regime.” No organization, not even of the most innocuous kind, could escape the Communist Party’s control. Thus emerged the first one-party state in history."

"The other epidemic was Bolshevism, which for a time seemed almost as contagious and ultimately proved as lethal as the influenza. With the end of the war, Soviet-style governments were proclaimed in Budapest, Munich and Hamburg. The red flag was even raised above Glasgow City Chambers. Lenin dreamed of a 'Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia'. Trotsky declared that 'the road to Paris and London lies via the towns of Afghanistan, the Punjab and Bengal'. Even distant Buenos Aires was rocked by strikes and street fighting. In Russia itself, however, the Bolsheviks' authority was non-existent outside the big cities. Against them were arrayed three counterrevolutionary or 'White' armies led by experienced Tsarist generals: Anton Denikin's Volunteers, an army of many officers and few men which had started life on the banks of the Don, Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak's force in Siberia and General Nikolai Yudenich's in the north-west."

"The Russian Civil War is also instructive because the Cold War was quintessentially a military confrontation and a key episode in military history, as well as an ideological rift. Far from being contained short of conflict, the first challenge to the Soviet Union was a hot war involving armies and largescale military campaigns. Moreover, the Russian Civil War underlined the extent to which, in international and military terms, the Cold War did not simply entail rivalry between leading militaries deploying high-spectrum weaponry, as was to be the case for the Soviet Union and the USA after World War Two, notably with atomic weaponry and missiles. Instead, as was to be seen in the classic 1945–89 period of the Cold War, particularly in Africa in the 1970s, the Russian Civil War involved a range of forces and methods, both military and non-military: regular operations, insurrectionary and counter-insurrectionary conflicts, propaganda, and economic and commercial elements among them."

"The Cold War stemmed from war, from the violence, fear and paranoia that conflict fostered, and from defeat and victory in two successive struggles, World War One and the Russian Civil War. Defeat at the hands of Germany and, even more, the social and political strain of conflict on an unprecedented scale in World War One (1914–18) led, in March 1917, to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in Russia and its replacement by a provisional, republican government. The dynasty had responded more successfully to the challenge of the Thirteen Years’ War with Poland in 1654–67, to the Great Northern War with Sweden in 1700–21, to wars with the Turks, Sweden and France between 1806 and 1815, and even to the brief French occupation of Moscow in 1812, than it was to do to war of a very different type with Germany."

"In military history, the Russian Civil War is often brushed into a brief cul-de-sac, after a lengthy treatment of World War One, with the latter conventionally understood as the move into modern and total warfare. That approach is mistaken, not least because it fails to accept the military significance of the Russian Civil War and the modern and total war it represented, but also the degree to which the Soviet Union was born in the experience of civil war, and took on part of its character accordingly. This was a civil war that for long appeared to hang in the balance. For both sides, force was linked to fear in a sense of assault from linked threats, internal and external. The reaction on the part of the Communists was one of unparalleled brutality, although, even without the civil war, the Communists would probably have conducted themselves pretty much the same. Much of the content and tone of the writings before the Russian Civil War of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Communist leader, predicted what would happen. However, a dream of violence was superseded by a grimmer reality. Such a trajectory was more generally the case for the establishment of Communist regimes. Others were born in the experience of civil war, including Albania, Yugoslavia, China, Cuba, Vietnam and Ethiopia, and such a trajectory would also have been true for would-be Communist regimes. Moreover, as with the Soviet Union, such civil war frequently overlapped with international conflict. This was frequently presented in terms of revolutionary struggle with imperial and colonial powers."

"Nevertheless, from November 1918 onwards the tide of the civil war ran the Bolsheviks' way. By April 1919 Kolchak's forces had been beaten and by July Perm was back in Bolshevik hands, followed by Omsk itself in November. Denikin enjoyed some success in the Ukraine in the summer of 1919 but had lost Kiev by the end of the year. Yudenich's attempt to capture Petrograd had also failed, thanks in large measure to Trotsky's rallying of the city's defenders, who drove the defeated White army back into Estonia, whence they had come. General Peter Wràngel's Caucasian Army had captured Tsaritsyn that June, but by January 1920 it was clear that the war was effectively over. The Allies cut off their aid to the Whites. One by one the generals fled or, like Kolchak, were captured and executed. By the summer of 1920 Lenin felt confident enough to export the Revolution westwards, ordering the Red Army to march on Warsaw and confidently talking of the need to 'sovietize Hungary and perhaps Czechia and Romania too'. Only their decisive defeat by the Polish army on the banks of the River Vistula halted the spread of the Bolshevik epidemic."

"The Revolution had been made in the name of peace, bread and Soviet power. It turned out to mean civil war, starvation and the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party's Central Committee and its increasingly potent subcommittee, the Politburo. Workers who had supported the Bolsheviks in the expectation of a decentralized soviet regime found themselves being gunned down if they had the temerity to strike at newly nationalized factories. With inflation rampant, their wages in real terms were just a fraction of what they had been before the war. 'War Communism' reduced hungry city dwellers to desperate bartering expeditions to the country and to burning everything from their neighbours' doors to their own books for heat. As the conscription system grew more effective, more and more young men found themselves drafted into the Red Army, which grew in number from less than a million in January 1919 to five million by October 1920, though desertion rates remained high, especially around harvest time. When the previously pro-Bolshevik sailors of Kronstadt mutinied in February 1921 , they denounced the regime for crushing freedom of speech, press and assembly and filling prisons and concentration camps with their political rivals."

"In one of the ugliest wars of the twentieth century, the new Bolshevik government of Russia consolidated its power, fighting off numerous White armies consisting of monarchists and those who favored a less drastic form of socialism, as well as nationalist armies from border states such as the Ukraine, and the intervening forces of fourteen different foreign countries. In a conflict that raged across the length and breadth of the former Russian Empire, millions of lives were lost and the Soviet Union was eventually born, with its leaders scarred by terror, deeply paranoid, and xenophobic. The result was the autocratic USSR of Stalin's terror purges, the gulag, and the Cold War."

"While all these untoward events were taking place, amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, a new and more terrible cause of quarrel than the imperialism of czars and kaisers became apparent in Europe. The Civil War in Russia ended in the absolute victory of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet armies which advanced to subjugate Poland were indeed repulsed in the Battle of Warsaw, but Germany and Italy nearly succumbed to Communist propaganda and designs. Hungary actually fell for a while under the control of the Communist dictator, Bela Kun. Although Marshal Foch wisely observed that “Bolshevism had never crossed the frontiers of victory,” the foundations of European civilisation trembled in the early post-war years. Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of Communism. While Corporal Hitler was making himself useful to the German officer class in Munich by arousing soldiers and workers to fierce hatred of Jews and Communists, on whom he laid the blame of Germany’s defeat, another adventurer, Benito Mussolini, provided Italy with a new theme of government which, while it claimed to save the Italian people from Communism, raised himself to dictatorial power. As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction."

"By the spring of 1923 it was clear to the Republicans that the Civil War was all but over and that the Free State had won. Frank Aiken, the IRA chief of staff, ordered all IRA Volunteers to dump their arms and to cease hostilities against the Free State Army from 30 April. The announcement of the ceasefire was not enough to save the life of Patrick O'Mahony, an IRA Volunteer who was executed by the Free State Army at Ennis Jail the morning after it was announced. Nor did the ceasefire save Christopher Quinn and William O'Shaughnessy, the last two Republicans killed in official Free State executions. Quinn and O'Shaughnessy were shot by a firing squad at Ennis on 2 May 1923, two days after the Civil War had ended."

"During the Civil War consideration was given by the British government to using the Royal Navy to help the Free State Army. However, it was decided that such an action was unnecessary and would only embarrass the Provisional government in Dublin. The Royal Navy remained aloof during the conflict, although its presence dominated Ireland's coastal waters."

"Men reacted differently to their experiences of revolution and rebellion. Recriminations followed defeat in the Civil War and morale collapsed in IRA units. One internal report on the local organization found that 'there is a lot of discontent down there and a lot of it purely personal'. Some still bore the physical scars of conflict. For example, Thomas 'Sweeney' Newell, who was shot by the British during the War of Independence, recalled, 'I was still wearing a steel body jacket with a steel rod attached to it and running down to the heel.' Many veterans spoke little to their families about the events they had been involved in. The son of one IRA volunteer learned about a major aspect of his father's past while reading a book in university. Other veterans veterans devoted considerable time and effort to ensuring that recognition and pensions were received by those who, it was felt, deserved it. For many, bonds of intense loyalty had been created and feelings of respect that lasted decades, even across the bitter Treaty divide."

"The first recorded use of military aircraft in the civil war was an air sortie against rebels in Dundalk in August 1922. The Air Service also undertook coastal patrols; the whole coastal area from Waterford to Kenmare Bay was constantly patrolled by Air Service aircraft. The day before the seaborne landings at Cork, Col. C.F. Russell flew over the city to reconnoitre the positions of anti-government forces. The use of military aircraft allowed the Dublin government to patrol the coasts of "rebel Cork," as well as to maintain contact with isolated garrisons, regardless of disrupted inland communications. The anti-Treatyites did not have any military aircraft in service."

"Meanwhile, the base at Baldonnel was singled out for a coup by the 'Irregulars', whose fortunes in the Dublin area were on the wane. They planned to seize the air base with the help of some sympathisers among the garrison. The jumping-off point for the attack was a wood close by the aerodrome, where 25 armed men were to rendezvous with a larger number of unarmed personnel, their task being to transport captured supplies. With the aerodrome secure, a former wartime pilot nicknamed 'The Deacon' (he had advanced to that stage of the Holy Orders before espousing the Republican cause) with an assistant, would commandeer an aircraft and attack Government buildings. The raid completed, the aeroplane was to land on Merrion Strand. In later years, the 'bomb aimer' described the plan as high farce. When he queried his pilot on various matters, 'The Deacon' always had a suitable reply, but when asked about the state of the tide at the time when they would be landing, he confessed that he had forgotten to check. Not surprisingly, when the raid on Baldonnel was cancelled, the young bomb aimer elect was greatly relieved because he had come to the conclusion that 'The Deacon' could not really fly an aircraft! However the aborted raid did result in casualties, three members of the Baldonnel garrison who deserted to the Irregulars for the planned operation, were subsequently captured, court martialled, and shot."

"Seldom in the history of any country has a single unlucky bullet so utterly altered the course of events. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that Ireland suffers the consequences to this day. Had Michael lived, it is highly probable that he would have brought the civil war to a speedy conclusion and succeeded in healing the breach with the North, leading to the removal of partition which few politicians, from Lloyd George and Churchill downwards, regarded as anything other than a purely temporary measure in 1922. After Michael's death, however, the South had no one with the breadth of vision and the negotiating skills to tackle Sir James Craig, and as time passed, the breach between North and South widened. Michael would almost certainly have prevented the Ulster boundary crisis of 1925, with its tragic consequences for Anglo-Irish relations over the ensuing seven decades. This arose when the report of the Boundary Commission was published, revealing that not an inch of Northern Ireland was to be ceded to the Free State, despite the wishes of at least a third of the inhabitants of the Six Counties. This bombshell reopened old wounds and almost triggered off a renewal of civil war in southern Ireland."

"And after truce and treaty and the parting of the ways He wore it when he marched out with the rest (and the best) And when they bore his body down on that rugged heather braes They placed the broad black brimmer on his chest"

"Candles dripping blood, they placed beside your shoulders Rosary beads like teardrops on your fingers Friends and comrades standing by, in their grief they wonder why Michael, in their hour of need you had to go Michael, in their hour of need, why did you go?"

"The Irish Civil War was not characterised by pitched battles fought between field armies; rather it was quite similar to the previous Anglo-Irish War. However in this campaign the anti-Treatyite fighters faced an Irish army which had the support of an increasing percentage of the population, especially among prosperous farmers and the middle classes who yearned for an end to the anarchy. Most importantly, the Provisional government had the support of the Roman Catholic Church. In this campaign the Army Council exhibited a great deal more tactical and strategic resource and guile than the British in the Anglo-Irish war. In addition, the Provisional government introduced draconian measures to suppress the rebellion, for example, summary execution of suspects without right or recourse to a trial. Seventy-seven Irregulars were executed (twice the number shot by the British), one of whom was Erskine Childers, the man who masterminded the Howth gun-running and who later attended the Anglo-Irish peace talks in London."

"The Provisional government's military goal was unambiguous, namely the suppression of armed rebellion by the republicans against the new Free State. To achieve this aim the 4000 strong National Army was quickly expanded to a strength of 60,000. Ten thousand British rifles were handed over to what Winston Churchill called "trustworthy Free State troops." Recruitment was not difficult as the onset of the post-war economic slump had created very high levels of unemployment. Nearly one thousand volunteers a day were recruited, many of whom had former service in the British Army. It was primarily an infantry-oriented army, although separate support arms and services were established."

"Initially the military balance was perilous as the Irregulars held sway over most of the west and south of Ireland. Even in Dublin, they had not been decisively defeated, rather they had gone to ground. The Free State's two main port cities, Limerick and Cork, were under the control of the Irregulars, and the River Shannon was beyond the Dublin government's control. It was General Michael Brennan, the Free State military commander in the Limerick area, who correctly summed up the situation: "the Shannon was a barricade and whoever held Limerick held the South and the West." Gen. Brennan firmly believed and with much justification that the outcome of the Irish Civil War turned on Limerick. The Irregulars, although numerically stronger and in possession of most of the Free State territory, did not move on Dublin. They surrendered the initiative to the National Army's forces and embarked on a systematic plan of destruction of all communications and anything that might be of assistance to the Free State army. In the course of this campaign of destruction, which in the words of the Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops "wrecked Ireland from end to end", the country's transport infrastructure was devastated: 236 bridges were damaged, 468 railway locomotives, carriages and other rolling stock were destroyed. The great railway viaduct over the Blackwater at Mallow linking Cork with the north was blown up. The reign of anarchy, which left factories and creameries destroyed and period mansion houses with their priceless art treasures burnt out, obliged the Provisional government to restore order as quickly as possible. In order to avoid a zone of isolation being created beyond the effective jurisdiction of Dublin, military formations were to be moved by sea thus avoiding a long and possibly costly overland advance."

"As the conflict spread many IRA men simply opted out of the fight. Those who remained active found a public that was significantly less supportive than they had been during the opposition to British rule. Another blow to the Republican cause was the attitude of the Catholic Church. While some individual clergymen offered their support to the Republicans, the Catholic hierarchy was extremely hostile to the IRA during the Civil War and actively and publicly supported the Free State."

"Many IRA officers also became involved in politics and Fianna Fáil, particularly, continued to be dominated by IRA veterans until the 1960s. Intensely nationalistic, even into old age, a twenty-six-county state failed to satisfy the aspirations of many veterans, even if few took part in or actively supported later IRA campaigns. Referring to partition, Petie McDonnell was to write: 'the cause for which they fought and were willing to give their lives, lives on'."

"In comparison to the War of Independence, there was relatively little activity in Clare during the Civil War, but nonetheless Claremen were active on both sides during that conflict. The very first Republican fatality of the Civil War was a Clareman: IRA Volunteer Joseph Considine from Clooney was shot dead by Free State Army soldiers in Dublin on 28 June 1922, shortly after the 'Battle of the Four Courts' began. At least ten IRA Volunteers and three Free State soldiers were killed in Clare during the Civil War, while Commandant Con MacMahon and Volunteer Patrick Hennessy, both natives of Clooney, were executed by a Free State Army firing squad at Limerick Jail on 20 January 1923."

"Following the Truce in July 1921, with few exceptions, the officers and men of the three Kerry brigades rejected the Anglo-Irish Treaty. After the Free State army's attack on the Four Courts in late June 1922 at the start of the Civil War, these men again took up arms in defence of their Republic. In a campaign marked by brutality, summary executions and massacres, the Civil War dragged on bitterly for ten months. By the time of Frank Aiken's dump arms order in May 1923, Republican forces in North Kerry had been driven underground. In South Kerry they remained largely intact while fighting a guerrilla war with the invading Free State army which had reached a bloody stalemate. Ultimately the defence of the Republic failed. The defeated Republicans were precluded from employment under the new Free State administration and many disillusioned men to emigrate, largely to America. Those that remained regrouped into various factions. Most followed de Valera and his Fianna Fáil party into the constitutional politics of a twenty-six county state in 1927, while others remained resolute in their commitment to the Republics of 1916 and 1919 and, in the words of Liam Lynch, would 'serve under no other law'."

"The country moved towards the end of 1923: impoverished and riven with bitterness. Control was maintained through censorship and special powers of arrest and internment of those thought to be a danger to the newly established order. The state was still just about in charge of the army but now in the pocket of the Catholic Church hierarchy. It was still not a nation that cherished all its citizens equally and would not be so for very many decades to come."

"As the Treaty terms were being hotly debated in the Dail Eireann- the Irish Parliament- the split in the ranks of the Irish Republican Army widened and flared into open war in the last week of June. Anti-Treaty forces (the 'Irregulars') had occupied the judiciary complex at the Four Courts by the Liffey, and were defying the Provisional Government and refusing to budge. From across the river, the National Army opened fire with artillery- the first shots rang out in a cruel civil war which was to last for two years, but whose effects were to be felt for much longer."

"Fairly restrained by international standards, the Irish Civil War was nonetheless an intense and often cruel war; there is evidence that victims and perpetrators knew each other, and the community's complicity in violence was central to the success of the killing or forcible displacement of the target."

"While the buildup of men and machines continued, BF.I was taking an active part in the conflict. Observer/gunners were readily available, these were men who had never flown before but were well experienced in guerrilla warfare, some being veterans of the 1916 Rising. Russell was partnered by a former member of Collins' elite Active Service Unit, when he took off on the first sortie to support ground troops in Wicklow. The aircraft was armed solely with a standard infantry Lewis gun with which the observer engaged the Irregulars, firing it from his hip while dangerously balanced in his cockpit. The lack of armament on this and a second aircraft obtained from the RAF, perhaps underlined the original peaceful plans for the Air Service: its founders had refused guns, ammunition and bombs, which somewhat puzzled the donors. However, after the first sortie, warlike stores were accepted, once it became apparent that a real war was brewing up."

"The curlew stood silent and unseen In the long damp grass And he looked down on the road below him That wound its way through Beal Na mBlath And he heard the young men shouting and cursing Running backwards and forwards Dodging and weaving and ducking the bullets>br>That rained down on them From the hillside opposite. Just as quickly as it started the firing stopped And a terrible silence hung over the valley A lone figure lay on the roadside In the drizzling August rain Dressed in green cape coat, leggings, And brown hobnail boots That would never again Set the sparks flying from the kitchen flagstones As he danced his way through a half-set/ A hurried whispered act of contrition And the firing breaks out again The curlew takes to flight And as he flies out over the empty sad fields of West Cork With his lonesome call He must tell the world That the Big Fellow has fallen And that Michael is gone."

"From the beginning Michael was targeted by the anti-Treaty faction and as the sessions wore on the issue became not so much the Treaty itself, but the personal standing of Mick Collins. In the end, and to a very large extent, the voting reflected the love or hatred for him- there could be no half measures- of the individual deputies. During the stormy sessions, Michael was for the most part calm and dignified, even stoical at times; but now and then his famous temper would explode. Strangely enough, or perhaps characteristically, what seemed to rouse his ire most of all was the inability of deputies to arrive for each session on time, there by delaying the start of proceedings. With immense forcefulness he reminded them that punctuality was a great thing. Two factors were immediately apparent: the disagreement was set to divide opinion right across the country, and if Michael were the chief target of opprobrium he was not going to take it lying down."

"Less lethal loads were also carried: leaflets were dropped to the Irregulars encouraging them to surrender, while copies of the Army journal, An t-Oglac, were showered on friendly troops. Russell established that the racecourses at Limerick Junction and Waterford would be suitable as advanced landing grounds, and he also flew reconnaissance missions from the Fair Green in Limerick City. Here, a landing mishap caused slight damage, which put the 'Brisfit' out of action for several weeks, before a Baldonnel team repaired it expertly in the open. To replace this aircraft, the SE.5a fighter was dispatched to Limerick but, suffering from a faulty compass and falling oil pressure, it landed off course in County Cork. While the pilot, Fred Crossley, sought help, Irregulars came on the scene and, having first removed its machine guns, ignited the aircraft which promptly blew up- it was carrying two 20lb (9kg) bombs! Thus unded the short career of the lone SE.5a, but shortly thereafter, the conflict in the Limerick area ended in victory for the regular troops."

"As nations, we've known hardship and division, but we've also found solace and sympathy in one another. And just 4 years before we issued our Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin came to the Irish Parliament and declared—and described it as, I quote, "disposed to be friends of America." End of quote. In turn, the next Ireland—in turn, the text of Ireland's 1916 Proclamation displayed mainly in the main foyer of this building draws on the support of Ireland's "exiled children in America." The quote. Draws on the support of "exiled children in America." We're nations that know what it means to persevere for freedom, to brave a civil war, to toil in the vineyards of democracy. And that's, again, not hyperbole; it's a fact. It's a fact. It's not just the hope, but the conviction that better days lie ahead, that brought us along. We have the power to build a better future."

"There is no British Government anymore in Ireland. It is gone. It is no longer the enemy. We have now a native government, constitutionally elected, and it is the duty of every Irish man and woman to obey it. Anyone who fails to obey is an enemy of the people and must expect to be treated as such. We have to learn that attitudes and actions which were justifiable when directed against alien administration, holding its position by force, are wholly unjustifiable against a native government which exists only to carry out the people's will, and can be changed the moment it ceases to do so. We have to learn that freedom imposes responsibilities."

"We beat them in the cities and we whipped them in the streets. And the world hailed Michael Collins, our commander and chief. And they sent you off to London to negotiate a deal And to gain us a Republic, united, boys, and real. But the women and the drink, Mick, they must have got to you, 'Cause you came back with a country divided up in two."

"We had to turn against you, Mick, there was nothing we could do 'Cause we couldn't betray the Republic like Arthur Griffith and you. We fought against each other, two brothers steeped in blood, But I never doubted that your heart was broken in the flood. And though we had to shoot you down in golden Béal na mBláth, I always knew that Ireland lost her greatest son of all."

"The Treaty is already vindicating itself. The English Die-hards said to Mr. Lloyd George and his Cabinet: "You have surrendered". Our own Die-hards said to us: "You have surrendered". There is a simple test. Those who are left in possession of the battlefield have won."

"After the executions, the families of the dead men were sent a typed pro forma notification. The note for the Cassidy family read as follows: 'I am to inform you that Peter Cassidy was tried by a military court on 8 November 1922. That he was found guilty of possession of a firearm without lawful authority and that he was sentenced to death. This sentence was executed on the morning of 17th November 1922. This practice was challenged in the Dáil but continued throughout the civil war and it became common for parents to learn that their son had been executed through a press release or a typed memo shoved through the letterbox. In Dublin, the public and the Dáil learned of the first executions in the afternoon papers. Later that day there was an emergency debate in the Dáil and the decision to execute was hotly challenged by the Labour opposition and other deputies. Mulcahy justified what was done by what he called the need ti 'stem the tide' of lawlessness. 'These men,' he told the Dáil, 'were found on the streets of Dublin at night carrying revolvers and waiting to take the lives of other men.' They had certainly been tried and convicted of possessing loaded revolvers. It is a reasonable inference that they were not charged with the attack on Oriel House because it could not be proved against them. To be tried for one reason and executed for another would become a common scenario during the war."

"One of the most contentious policies was the suspended death sentence experiment tried out in Kerry and then apparently abandoned. Very quickly it became clear that the emerging policy was to amass a bank of prisoners under sentence of death: about 400 were under sentence of death at the end of the war. All of these men were hostages for the good behavior of others. When attacks on the National Army took place, the Army Council searched around the bank of prisoners and fixed on those most closely connected with the attackers: executions followed. By the end of the war, eighty-three prisoners had been executed. Most of the executed prisoners were in their twenties or still teenagers. Most held low rank or no rank in the anti-Treaty faction. Apart from the Mountjoy executions only one other prisoner of high rank was executed. Others, like Liam Deasy, were spared because they signed the form and encouraged others to give up the fight. Ernie O'Malley was spared because of his record, although it was said by some that he was so ill that an execution might have drawn unfavorable comparisons to the execution of James Connolly. Pax Whelan, Michael Kilroy and many others of high rank were also spared."

"In the space of a few months, thousands of anti-Treaty prisoners and those suspected of being so were interned without trial in makeshift prisons and camps. Many of the prisoners were bent on disruption and escape, and their National Army guards had no training for the role of gaoler. Conditions were primitive and chaotic and ill treatment of internees became routine in the civil war. At least four were shot dead during escape attempts and perhaps that is not surprising in a conflict such as this. Four more prisoners were shot dead in prison for infractions of prison rules where there was no suggestion of an attempt to escape or use force against their captors. In addition, seventeen prisoners were killed in the Kerry landmine massacres."

"England in August 1642 was in the midst of harvest, the fields covered in shocks of corn or standing golden brown ready for the sickle. But the time had come for another and bitter harvest. The long months of move and counter move between King Charles and his Parliament were over, culminating with the monarch's leading armed men into the House of Commons to arrest five members, only to find his birds flown. Now, with the raising of the royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August, the country lay under the shadow of fratricidal Civil War."

"Artillery had proved its worth in battles as well as in sieges as early as the middle of the fifteenth century; it was decisive at Castillon as at Constantinople. But its progress had been slow, and, at the time of the civil wars, many of its characteristics were still unsatisfactory. Ranges were short, rates of fire slow, equipment heavy and means of traction uneconomical. Nevertheless, both round-shot and case-shot were damaging missiles, which could score heavily on a troop of horse or a stand of pikes, whilst for siege work the big guns were invaluable."

"The rate of cannon-fire was very slow. The process of sponging-out and reloading was deliberate and complex. Powder was kept in small budge barrels near the guns, which were fired by the application of linstock to the touch-hole. The risk of premature explosions was very great, and it is doubtful whether it was possible to fire more than one round every three minutes. By the time of Waterloo it was possible, using grapeshot, to get off as many as three rounds a minute for short periods. With grape-shot the recoil was reduced and it was not necessary to run the guns up between rounds. But by 1815 all sorts of improvements had been made, with guns lightened and means of traction improved."

"I wish the observation of the duke de Rohan in his interest of Christendom may prove a caution, not a prophecy. He saith of England, that it is a great creature, which cannot be destroyed but by its own hand. And there is not a more likely hand than that of civil war to do it. The issue of all war is like a cast at dice, none can tell upon what square the alea belli will light. The best issue that can be expected of a civil war, ubi victor flet, et victus perit: which of these will be our portion is uncertain, and the choice should be avoided. Yet, sir, when I have said this, I am not for a tame resignation of our religion, lives, and liberties into the hands of our adversaries, who seek to devour us. Nor do I think it inconsistent with your great wisdom, to prepare for a just and necessary defence of them."