Irish War of Independence: 1916 ed. / The Summer War

The Irish War of Independence was the most recent major conflict to be fought in the British Isles. It was a combination of timing, talent, luck, and sheer-bloody mindedness that fought the British Empire to a standstill in its own back garden.
Firstly, the timing, the brutal crackdown following the Easter Rising was an understandable, if utterly wrong, miscalculation the like of which will be poured over in the history books for decades and centuries to come. In a quintessential instance of defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory, it was the judicial murders of the Rising's leaders that lead to the Pentecost Rising and the Summer War, or the Irish War for Independence (1916 edition, there have been quite a few after all).
Whatever the political wisdom have may been behind the decision to effectively exterminate an entire generation of Irish rebel leadership with nary a trace of legality. It may have been reasonable to expect that at least such a blow would cripple Irish efforts at independence. Indeed at the time, many interpreted Michael Collin's evasion of capture by the British, and daring jail brake of the only two leaders of the Rising to avoid execution, Eamon de Valera (by birth an American citizen) and Countess Markievicz (a woman, and wife of a minor Russian noble) to be a case of too little, too late, audacious as it was. It turns out however, that such a clean break was precisely what was needed. In killing all the leaders they had in custody, the British had cleared the way for a new, yet more, militant generation of Irish leaders, and now there was no one who could dispute their right to lead.
Retreating into the comparative remoteness of the Gaeltacht districts in the far west of Ireland. The would be rebels licked their wounds, learned from previous mistakes, and prepared for the future. It was now the rebels faced their main dilemma, on the one hand, they needed time to prepare for the next rising, on the other hand, the British were looking for them, and would likely find them sooner or later. They gave themselves a mere month to prepare, hoping that it was time enough to prepare what men they had. In the confusion preceding the Easter Rising had meant Collins had not directly participated in it, by the time he could, he had seen it for the lost cause it was and kept potential rebels from joining in elsewhere in Ireland. He had by no means being idle though, with the British focused on Dublin, Collins took the opportunity to recruit and train as many men as he could. In hope of a future rising, if he could not save the current one. In the aftermath, as news of the executions and other atrocities of the British began to emerge even more volunteers came forward. Thus, by the 12th of June they had some 5,000 men under arms and ready. A considerably larger force than the 1,250 who had participated in the rising, but paltry next to the force of 16,000 men the British had sent to Dublin to crush it.
It was a risk, but it was a risk that could not be avoided. It is also worth considering the situation both in Britain and the wider world at the time. On the Western front, the Siege of Verdun was well underway and the British Army was committed to doing its best for the French while planning their own major offensive which was due to start at the beginning of July. In addition, the British government had also come under discreet but definite criticism from the United States of America. While President Woodrow Wilson had hardly been subtle in support of the allied powers, his efforts to support them came under close scrutiny following the Rising as both Irish and German descendent Americans voiced their criticism of seeing Britain as a bastion of liberty owing to the actions of the British Army during and after the Rising. Wilson's efforts to get involved in the war had been severely set back. 
At the same time as violence broke out across Ireland in the summer of 1916, a brilliant propaganda campaign directed against the British populace and army was also waged. Despite the efforts of censors who were simply unable to keep up with the onslaught of propaganda, and whose ever more clumsy attempts to intercept it made them the targets of derision and anger.
As the summer wore on, casualties from the Somme and Ireland mounted for the British Army, the loyalty of Irish troops and formations became suspect as anger over the Rising and its aftermath was directed at the Army High Command, in Great Britain too, there was little popular support for a military campaign in Ireland as the Great War had been presented to the British Public as a war of liberation. Now the British Army were fighting a civil war against its own people. It is no wonder then, that it was politics, more than anything, that brought negotiations to a beginning.
The peace reached in the autumn of 1916 made no one happy. Yet it was undoubtedly a victory for the IRA and its allies. Though they had not fully achieved freedom, they had the freedom to achieve freedom. In the long term, this would prove to be, exactly what was needed for an independent Ireland.

Conflict Type

War