John Redmond's Last Years

In the campaign thus launched, as Redmond so keenly desired, under the joint auspices of Ulstermen, Southern Unionists and Nationalists, one circumstance attracted attention. It was proposed to hold a great meeting at Newry, the frontier town where Ulster marches with the South—a centre in which recruiting had been singularly keen and successful. The scheme was to unite on one platform the Lord-Lieutenant, Redmond and Sir Edward Carson. Sir Edward Carson, however, "did not think the proposal would serve any useful purpose," and the meeting was held without him, in December 1915.

By this time the Sixteenth Division was under orders for France. We had been since September in training at Blackdown, near Aldershot; and here Redmond was one of several distinguished visitors who came to see us and address the troops. He came down also unofficially more than once, for his brother had a pleasant house among the pine-trees—where he guarded, or was guarded by, the brigade's mascot, the largest of three enormous wolfhounds which, through John Redmond, were presented to the Irish Division.

Towards the end of the year new rumours were afloat. The 49th Brigade had never been made up to strength, and there were stories that a non-Irish brigade was to be linked up with us. Letters from two commanding officers of the 49th Brigade illustrate the extent to which Redmond had come by all ranks to be regarded as our tutelary genius; to him they appealed for redress, fearing that they would be turned into a reserve brigade. The matter was settled at last to his content and theirs by a decision that the two brigades which were ready should go out in advance, to be followed by the 49th; and we entrained accordingly on December 17th.

The Ulster Division had preceded us by three months. All three Irish Divisions were now in the field, and reserve brigades were established to feed them. Redmond could feel that in great measure his work was done, and that he could await the issue in confidence.

He wrote at this time, in a preface contributed to Mr. MacDonagh's book The Irish at the Front, a passage of unusual emotion which tells what he thought and felt upon this matter.

"It is these soldiers of ours, with their astonishing courage and their beautiful faith, with their natural military genius, carrying with them their green flags and their Irish war-pipes, advancing to the charge, their fearless officers at their head, and followed by their beloved chaplains as great-hearted as themselves—bringing with them a quality all their own to the sordid modern battlefield—it is these soldiers of ours to whose keeping the Cause of Ireland has passed. It was never in holier, worthier keeping than with these boys offering up their supreme sacrifice of life with a smile on their lips because it was given for Ireland."

V

One thing at least Redmond gained, I think, from his visit to the front—the sense that with the British Army in the field he was in a friendly country. He never had that sense with regard to the War Office. Running all through this critical year 1915 is the history of one long failure—his attempt to secure the creation of a Home Defence force in Ireland. Given that, he would be confident of possessing the foundation for the structure of an Irish Army—an army which would be regarded as Ireland's own. Without it, the whole fabric of his efforts must be insecure. He desired to build, as in England they built, upon the voluntary effort of a people in whom entire confidence was placed. In the War Office undoubtedly men's minds were set upon finding a regular supply of Irish troops by quite other methods—by the application of compulsion.

The practical organization of the great body at his disposal was under discussion between him and Colonel Moore from February 1915 onwards; and the idea was mooted that by introducing the territorial system Ulster Volunteers and National Volunteers might be drawn into the same corps. This, however, was for the future; the immediate need was to extend the arming and training under their own organization. Redmond learnt at once that Lord Kitchener was against this; that he pointed to the existence of another armed force in the North of Ireland and argued that to create a second must mean civil war; that he believed revolutionary forces to exist in Ireland which Redmond could not control and perhaps did not even suspect. Those who then thought with Lord Kitchener can say now that events have justified his view. They omit to consider how far those events proceeded from Lord Kitchener's refusal to accept Redmond's judgment.

On April 4th a display was made of the force available. A review was held in the Phoenix Park of 25,000 men—splendid material, but half of them with neither arms nor uniform. The Unionist Press was friendly in its comments upon the statement which Redmond supplied after the parade, claiming that these men should be utilized for Home Defence. That day was Easter Sunday of 1915. No one guessed then what the next Easter was going to bring about.

The proposed conference resolved itself—to Redmond's indignation—into a discussion of Redmond's memorandum between the Adjutant-General and Sir Lawrence Parsons. Only in September, when at Lord Wimborne's instance he interviewed Lord Kitchener, did he have the opportunity of raising the matter by direct speech. Lord Kitchener then declared himself willing to admit that on the question whether enlistment for Home Defence would promote or retard recruiting, Redmond's judgment was probably more valuable than his own, and he promised to review the question of Home Defence again in the light of it. But of this promise nothing came.

Meantime Redmond was being warned that the Volunteer organization as it stood had exhausted its usefulness; its enthusiasm was gone—a natural result of having no purpose. A new opening seemed to be created by the Bill which Lord Lincolnshire introduced to recognize a Volunteer Force in Great Britain which should perform military duties under the War Office control. Redmond hoped to see this carried with an extension of it to Ireland, and this was the practical proposal with which he concluded his speech when, on November 2nd, for the first time in that year, he raised in debate the questions to which so much of his time and thought had been given.

How was the Irish recruiting problem to be dealt with? He declared himself absolutely against compulsion, to impose which would be "a folly and a crime" unless the country was "practically unanimous in favour of it." The voluntary system had never had fair play—at all events in Ireland.

"It is a fact, which has its origin in history, and which I need not refer to more closely—it is a fact that in the past recruiting for the British Army was not popular with the mass of the Irish people. But when the war broke out, my colleagues and I, quite regardless, let me say, of the political risks which stared us in the face, instantly made an appeal to those whom we represented in Ireland, and told them that this was Ireland's war as well as England's war, that it was a just war, and that the recent attitude of Great Britain to Ireland had thrown upon us a great, grave duty of honour to the British Empire. We then went back from this country, and we went all through Ireland. I myself, within the space of about a month after that, made speeches at great public meetings in every one of the four provinces of Ireland. We set ourselves to the task of creating in Ireland—creating, mind you—an atmosphere favourable to recruiting, and of creating a sentiment in Ireland favourable to recruiting. I say most solemnly, that in that task we were absolutely entitled to the sympathy and the assistance of the Government and the War Office. I am sorry to say we got neither."

He disclaimed all imputation upon the Prime Minister or the Under-Secretary, Mr. Tennant—exceptions which pointed the reference to Lord Kitchener.

He quoted the Unionist Birmingham Post for the saying that what had happened in Ireland was "a miracle." From the National Volunteers 27,054 men had joined the colours; from the Ulster Volunteers 27,412. In both forces there must be many left who could not leave Ireland, yet might be utilized in Ireland.

The Volunteer Bill came to the House of Commons in a form making it applicable to Ireland. There it was opposed by Sir Edward Carson, who demanded that no man of military age should be accepted as a volunteer unless he consented to enlist for general service if called. This killed the Bill.

Sir Edward Carson was of opinion that the necessities of the case demanded universal compulsory service; and conscription was already in sight. With that prospect Redmond's anxiety became very grave.

On November 15th he wrote his mind to the Prime Minister:

Assurances reached him that the first tentative Bill for compelling unmarried men to enlist would only be introduced to fulfil a pledge given by Mr. Asquith in connection with the Derby Scheme, and that as the Derby Scheme had not applied to Ireland, the pledge also had no bearing there. By December 21st the matter was raised in the House of Commons. Redmond, after the Prime Minister had spoken, defined what he was careful to call "my personal view" on the question of compulsory service.

The whole question was presented by him as "one of expediency and necessity, not of principle." From that standpoint he declared himself unconvinced that the adoption of compulsion in any shape was either expedient or necessary. It was inexpedient because it would "break up the unity of the country"—unnecessary because they had already many more men than they could either train or equip. In Ireland, a limited task had been defined, to keep up the necessary reserves for fifty-three battalions of infantry, and he pointed to the fact that so far the new organization of recruiting was producing the stipulated flow.

"It would most undoubtedly paralyse the efforts of myself and others who have worked unsparingly—and not unsuccessfully—since the commencement of the war, and would play right into the hands of those who are a contemptible minority among the Nationalists of Ireland, and who are trying—unsuccessfully trying—to prevent recruiting and to undermine thus the position and power of the Irish party because of the attitude we have taken up."

He complained once more of the Government's failure to utilize the Volunteers and of the damping effect which had resulted from the non-fulfilment of Mr. Asquith's words. Yet Ireland was doing all that was asked of it—maintaining the reserves of Irishmen for Irish regiments at the front.—This was true at the moment; but the Sixteenth Division had scarcely yet begun to come into the line and the Ulster Division, during its first few months, suffered slight casualties. In point of fact, however, the bare rumour of conscription had checked recruiting, and Redmond was guarded in his terms. It was, he said, "on the whole very satisfactory, and in the towns amazing"; but he admitted that the country districts had not given an adequate response.

That was his claim, and in that month of January 1916 he was fully entitled to make it; and the House, I think, recognized his justification. His speech has in it the ring of confidence, of assurance that he would be taken at his word.

"Rest satisfied," he said; "do not try to drive Ireland." Wise words, and they were not unwisely listened to. There was no room for doubting this man's earnestness when he went on to tell how he himself had recently met Irish troops in the field, and had then pledged himself to them to spare no effort in raising the necessary reserves for their ranks among their own countrymen. "Trust us," he said to the House, indicating himself and his colleagues, "trust us to know, after all, the best methods. Do not carp at Irish effort, and do not belittle Irish effort." Then they might count on loyal and enduring support till the great struggle was ended.

Our Division, or rather two brigades of it, had detrained in France on the 19th of December; the first impression as we shook ourselves together for the march to strange billets was the sound of guns. Scattered about in different villages lying round Bethune, our battalions passed the next two months in the usual training before we should take up our own sector of the line, and we saw little or nothing of each other. March found us engaged, though still only attached by companies to more seasoned troops, in some rough crater-fighting on the ugly mine-riddled stretch between Loos and Hulluch. It was when we were marching out from broken houses about the minehead at Annequin that we first met again our old stable companions, the Royal Irish—and that I first saw Willie Redmond in France at the head of his company.

It was on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, and the Army Estimates were under discussion in a very thin House—a wrangling, fault-finding debate. In the middle of it Willie Redmond got up, and said that as he was not likely to be there again, he had one or two things to say which he thought the House would be glad to know. Speaking as one of the oldest members, who had all but completed his thirty-third year in Parliament, he told them that every soul in the House should be proud of the troops—not of the Irish troops, but of the troops generally—because more than anything else of the splendid spirit in which they were going through the privations and dangers,—which he described with passion. If he were to deliver a message from the troops, he knew well what it would be:

"Send us out the reinforcements which are necessary, and which are naturally necessary. Send us out, as we admit you have been doing up to this, the necessary supplies, and when you do that, have trust in the men who are in the gap to conduct the war to the victory which everyone at the front is confident is bound to come. 'And when victory does come,' the message would run on, 'you in the House of Commons, in the country, and in every newspaper in the country, can spend the rest of your lives in discussing as to whether the victory has been won on proper lines or whether it has not.' Nothing in the world can depress the spirits of the men that I have seen at the front. I do not believe that there was ever enough Germans born into this world to depress them. If it were possible to depress them at all, it can only be done by pursuing a course of embittered controversy in this country—as to which was the right way or the wrong way of conducting affairs at the front. When a man feels that his feet are freezing, when he is standing in heavy rain for a whole night with no shelter, and when next morning he tries to cook a piece of scanty food over the scanty flame of a brazier in the mud, he perhaps sits down for a few minutes in the day's dawn and takes up an old newspaper, and finds speeches and leading articles from time to time which tell him that apparently everything is going wrong, that the Ministers who are at the head of affairs in this country, upon whom he is depending, are not really men with their hearts in the work, but are really more or less callous and calculating mercenaries, who are not directing affairs in the best way, but are simply anxious to maintain their own salaries. I say that when speeches and articles of that kind are found in the newspapers they are calculated, if anything is or can be so calculated, to depress the men who are at the front."

Then came a few words in praise of the Irish troops and in deprecation of the failure to recognize some of their services; a confident assurance that, "whether they are remembered or not," the Sixteenth Division would do their duty, with an equal assurance that the Ulster men would do as well as they—and he reached to his conclusion:

"Since I went out there I found that the common salutation in all circumstances is one of cheer. If things go pretty well and the men are fairly comfortable, they say 'Cheer O!' If things go badly, and the snow falls and the rain comes through the roof of a billet in an impossible sort of cow-house, they say 'Cheer O!' still more. All we want out there is that you shall adopt the same tone and say 'Cheer O!' to us."

It is not too much to say that this speech was received with a cry of gratitude all over the country and throughout the Army. It said what badly needed to be said, and said it with a freshness and a dash that came superbly from a company commander in his fifty-fourth year. It was the best service that had yet been rendered to John Redmond's policy. Everybody quite naturally and simply accepted the Nationalist Irishman as the spokesman for all the troops who were actually in the line. Mr. Walter Long, always a generous and candid human being, was quick to give voice to this feeling:

"The honourable and gallant member for East Clare has been in conflict, not only with one particular political party, but during the greater part of his career with every party in turn, and has engaged in bitter controversy with them. Does anybody doubt the fact that when war was declared one great factor in the mind of the Emperor responsible for this war was that dissension would paralyse the hands of Great Britain? Ireland, whatever may have been our differences in the past, and whatever may be our differences in happier days again when we are at peace, everybody must feel by the action of her representatives, who have fought so bitterly in this House and in the country, has created a new claim for herself upon the affection, the gratitude, the respect of the people of the Empire by the great and proud part that she has played in this great struggle."

FOOTNOTES:

THE REBELLION AND ITS SEQUEL

I

The purpose of this book is to show Redmond's connection with this event and the succeeding developments from it. He failed to foresee the event; he failed to direct its developments into the course he desired. How far he is to be held responsible, or blameworthy, for these failures, readers may be assisted to decide.

From the beginning of 1916 onwards the Irish Government was warned of danger. One of its members—the Attorney-General, Sir James Campbell—advocated the seizure of arms from men parading with what were evidently stolen service rifles or bayonets. But the Chief Secretary refused to take any action which could be described as an attempt to suppress or disarm the Irish Volunteers until there was definite evidence of actual association with the enemy.

Later, when Mr. Birrell resigned his post after the insurrection was suppressed, Redmond chivalrously took on himself a part of the responsibility. "I feel," he said, "that I have incurred some share of the blame which he has laid at his own door, because I entirely agreed with his view that the danger of an outbreak of the kind was not a real one, and in my conversations with him I have expressed that view, and for all I know that may have influenced him in his conduct and his management of Irish affairs." A later debate—on July 31st—showed that his strong personal feeling for Mr. Birrell had moved him rather to overstate than to belittle his advisory responsibility. Dublin Castle had never consulted him as to policy. Conferences had taken place with the Under-Secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, but these were concerned with considering and framing the machinery to be created for bringing the Home Rule Act into operation, whenever the time came.

"There was no conference at all about the state of the country or about Sinn Fein. When once or twice in casual consultation the matter came up—I hope the House will listen to this—I did not hesitate to say what in my opinion ought to be done in certain cases by the Government. For example, I expressed a strong view to them as to how they should deal with seditious newspapers and with prosecutions. What I did suggest, they never did; what I said they ought not to do, they always did. And I want to say something further. They never gave me any information, bad or good, about the state of the country. From first to last I never saw one single confidential Government report from the police or from any other source. I know nothing whatever about their secret confidential information."

On the day when that statement appeared the sequel had begun to unroll itself. In the House of Commons Mr. Asquith announced the trial, sentence and shooting of three signatories to the Republican proclamation—Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh. With the exception of James Connolly, these were the men most directly answerable for launching an attempt which had cost five hundred lives and destroyed over two millions' worth of property, Redmond accepted their doom as just.

"This outbreak happily seems to be over. It has been dealt with with firmness, which was not only right, but it was the duty of the Government so to deal with it."

But now that example had been made, he held that other thoughts should guide those in authority.

It is well to recall what he had in his mind. After the suppression of the South African rebellion in 1914, one man only was put to death—an officer who changed sides during an action. No attempt was made to try accused persons before a jury; a special tribunal of judges was set up by the South African Parliament. But their power of inflicting punishment was limited by the Parliament to a sentence of three years. General de Wet, the chief figure in the rebellion, was dismissed without punishment to his farm. That was the manner in which a strong native Government, realizing the possibilities of future trouble, dealt with an insurrection infinitely more serious in a military sense than that which broke out in Dublin. But in Ireland there was no native government; and the announcement of Mr. Birrell's resignation meant in reality that Mr. Asquith's Ministry had abdicated so far as Ireland was concerned. Quite properly, they had called in a competent soldier to deal with the military exigency. Quite shamefully, they left him in sole authority to handle what was essentially the task of statesmanship.

On May 3rd, when Redmond made his public appeal to Mr. Asquith, it was still not too late to prevent the mischief from spreading. By general consent, Redmond was right when he said that the rising was thoroughly unpopular in Ireland, and most of all in Dublin. The troops on whom the insurgents fired were in the first instance Irish troops. Later in that year I was attached to one of these battalions (the 10th Dublins), and asked them how they did their scouting work during the conflict. "We needed no scouts," was the answer; "the old women told us everything." The first volley which met a company of this battalion killed an officer; he was so strongly Nationalist in his sympathy as to be almost a Sinn Féiner. Others had been active leaders in the Howth gun-running. It was not merely a case of Irishmen firing on their fellow-countrymen: it was one section of the original Volunteers firing on another.

Nothing could have prevented the halo of martyrdom from attaching itself to those who died by the law for the sake of Irish freedom: the tradition was too deeply ingrained in Ireland's history. Yet Redmond did not go beyond the measure of average Irish opinion when he accepted the first three executions as just. People at least knew who these men were, and their signatures to the proclamation of an Irish Republic proved their leadership. They were given the death of rebels in arms, to which no dishonour attaches. But a fatal mistake was made in suppressing all report of the proceedings of the court-martial on them, and this mistake was to be repeated indefinitely. Ireland was made to feel that this whole affair was taken completely out of the hands of Irishmen—that no attempt even was made to enlist Irish opinion on the side of law by a statement of the evidence on which law acted. Day by day there was a new bald announcement that such and such men had been shot; and these were men whose names Ireland at large had never heard of.

The result can be best expressed by recording the experience of one Sinn Féiner who was captured in the fighting. While the military escort was taking him through the streets to his place of confinement, a crowd gathered round and ran along, consisting of angry men and women who had seen bloodshed and known hunger during these days. They shouted to the soldiers to knock his brains out there and then. Three weeks later he was again marched through the streets on his way to an English prison, and again a crowd mustered. But this time, to his amazement, they were shouting: "God save you! God have pity on you! Keep your heart up! Ireland's not dead yet!"

These were the effects produced in Ireland on the mind of common people by the action of Government in enforcing the ultimate sanction of law which the members of that same Government by their action and by their inaction had brought into contempt. In England, in the meanwhile, a new Military Service Bill was going through the House, and naturally attempts to include Ireland in its operation were renewed. Sir Edward Carson, criticizing the Government of Ireland, said that (as Redmond put it in replying) Nationalists had held the power but not the responsibility. There was a note of angry protest in the Irish Leader's rejoinder. "I wish to say for myself that certainly since the Coalition Government came into operation, and before it, but certainly since then, I have had no power in the Government of Ireland. All my opinions have been overborne. My suggestions have been rejected, and my profound conviction is that if we had had the power and the responsibility for the Government of our country during the past two years, recent occurrences in Ireland would never have taken place."

That was a long tour of trenches, some eighteen days beginning on the 29th of April, and throughout it papers came in with the Irish news. I shall never forget the men's indignation. They felt they had been stabbed in the back. For myself, I thought that a situation had arisen in which Irish members who were serving had a more imperative duty at home, and I went to discuss the matter with Willie Redmond, whose battalion was then holding the front line to the left of Loos.

I found him in the deep company commander's dug-out in the bay of line opposite Puits 14 bis, which will be known to many Irish soldiers. We came up to the light to talk, and he agreed with me in my view. We arranged that each of us should discuss with his commanding officer the question of asking for special leave. Mine advised me to go, and I have no earthly doubt that his would have said, or did say, the same; but Willie Redmond never brought himself to leave his men. Next month, however, he was invalided back, very seriously ill.