The Civiil - - What if...

pO1Neil

Looking back with hindsight what would have happened if the IRA actually won the Civil War? Would the British still not recognize the Irish Republic & just swamp the place with a few 100's of 1000's of soldiers? Would do Americans now accept it? Would revolutionaries follow suit like the Soviet Unioin & come to our aid if we were attacked.

The only slim possible chance I could see us military taking control of the North is if the 60,000 or so Free State forces joined with 20-25,000 IRA, which is what I think Collins had in his mind before he died. Obviously they'd need a Northern Command structure like in the 80's for it to stand any chance of wining or least bringing the British back to negotiate a better deal.

tac foley

'military taking control of the North ...' and the million or so British troops just over the water would be doing, what, precisely?

Overlooking for the moment the Royal Air force and the Royal Navy, of course.

tac

Manach

Leaving aside the Royal Navy (Churchill's phrase comes to mind), on the point of expecting help from the Soviets, they were engaged in a rather vicious and losing struggle with Poland at that time (Norman Davies a good author on that).

riffmongous

The British still had 5000 troops stationed in Dublin at least up until when the end of 1922 by which point the conventional phase of the war was over, they could always have deployed more troops to hold the population centers and let the Free State forces do all the dirty work (just like before, but with less national and international condemnation now, most Americans were satisfied by the Treaty).

Without wanting to hijack your thread OP, but another big What If is if the British had been convinced to abandon the unionists up north (which many probably wanted to do) and agree to a 32 county Free State, how would the British have been involved with the almost inevitable civil war between Unionists and the Free State?

Manach

Possibly by akin to the Freikrops of Germany (supporting ex-Military forces in Ireland)? These dealt both with leftist fighters and nascent nationalist movements which could have split the new German Republic.
This would have allowed plausible denial.

riffmongous

Manach wrote: »

Possibly by akin to the Freikrops of Germany (supporting ex-Military forces in Ireland)? These dealt both with leftist fighters and nascent nationalist movements which could have split the new German Republic.
This would have allowed plausible denial.

Possibly at first alright, maybe similar to how the Tans/Auxies were intended, but I'd guess there would always been a danger of mutiny when it came to repressing fellow British to help the Irish, while with the Freikorps/ Heimwehrs and Schutzbunds they would have been more clearly ideologically opposed to their opponents. Then would the British be willing to deploy them, plenty of senior officers would have been familiar with the 1914 Curragh Incident.

Jolly Red Giant

Oh holy bejaysus - another 'what if' thread with countless false assumptions.

A better question would have been 'why did the anti-Treaty IRA lose the civil war?

Manach

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

Oh holy bejaysus - another 'what if' thread with countless false assumptions.

A better question would have been 'why did the anti-Treaty IRA lose the civil war?

It's called counterfactual historical analysis. It is used, in and out of academic discussions, to get a clearer motivations into the events of the time. Thus one of utilities in the toolkit: same as Marxist analysis, Great-Person theory etc.

Jolly Red Giant

Manach wrote: »

It's called counterfactual historical analysis. It is used, in and out of academic discussions, to get a clearer motivations into the events of the time. Thus one of utilities in the toolkit: same as Marxist analysis, Great-Person theory etc.

Manach - I suggest you read what I wrote - specifically a 'what if' based on false assumptions

from the OP

Would the British still not recognize the Irish Republic & just swamp the place with a few 100's of 1000's of soldiers?

To start with the Brits would not have waited for the anti-Treaty side to win before acting. The Brits actively supported the pro-Treaty forces and would have ramped up the support to ensure a pro-Treaty victory.

Would do Americans now accept it?

The US would have operated in the interests of US imperialist ambitions

Would revolutionaries follow suit like the Soviet Unioin & come to our aid if we were attacked.

No - because the Bolshevik revolution was a social revolution aimed at placing the working class in power - the anti-Treaty campaign was based on putting a different section of the Irish nationalist bourgeoisie in power.

The only slim possible chance I could see us military taking control of the North is if the 60,000 or so Free State forces joined with 20-25,000 IRA, which is what I think Collins had in his mind before he died.

The IRA didn't have 20-25,000 volunteers.

And the most nonsensical comment

Obviously they'd need a Northern Command structure like in the 80's for it to stand any chance of wining or least bringing the British back to negotiate a better deal.

1. The 'Northern Command structure' was a structure for a small urban guerrilla army - not a major force of 60,000 +
2. The campaign of the IRA was a failure - the 'agreement' re-inforced British imperialism in the North and maintained the sectarian divide.
3. No matter what 'better' deal the Brits might have offered it would have been a tinkering around the edges of what was actually agreed in 1921 and would have been an utter waste of the human lives it would have cost.

If you want to do a 'what if' issue then it has to be based on some realistic and possible premise. The one outlined here does not have that.

As I previously indicated - a much better discussion would be - 'on what basis could the anti-Treaty side have won the civil war?'

robp

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

No - because the Bolshevik revolution was a social revolution aimed at placing the working class in power

A tad idealistic.

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The anti-Treaty campaign was based on putting a different section of the Irish nationalist bourgeoisie in power.

In fact class wasn't a priority.

Jolly Red Giant

robp wrote: »

A tad idealistic.

Evidence?

robp wrote: »

In fact class wasn't a priority.

No it wasn't - during the run up to and during the civil war there was widespread strike action all over the country involving tens of thousands of workers. Both pro-and anti-Treaty forces acted to suppress the strike action.

Manach

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

'on what basis could the anti-Treaty side have won the civil war?'

Won the election prior to that?
In that having a mandate would have conferred a moral impetus [recalling Napoleon's words], which would most likely have sunk the treaty anyway.

Jolly Red Giant

Manach wrote: »

Won the election prior to that?
In that having a mandate would have conferred a moral impetus [recalling Napoleon's words], which would most likely have sunk the treaty anyway.

DeV and Collins attempted to fix the election until Collins pulled the plug. 37 of the 128 seats were 'won' unopposed without an election. To suggest that 'winning' the election provided anyone with a mandate is stretching things a bit.

Manach

My understanding, based on cursory reading of a work by Charles Townsend, is that having some mandate would sway would the neutral parties. If one goes forward 15 years - look at the example of the Spanish Civil war: to some of the historian I'd read, the fact that the army were in rebellion against the mandated Government had weaken their position enough to drag the war on.

Jolly Red Giant

Manach wrote: »

My understanding, based on cursory reading of a work by Charles Townsend, is that having some mandate would sway would the neutral parties. If one goes forward 15 years - look at the example of the Spanish Civil war: to some of the historian I'd read, the fact that the army were in rebellion against the mandated Government had weaken their position enough to drag the war on.

I really don't understand the point you are trying to make here.

Manach

Sorry my poor writing - I meant that by having a mandate, the Spanish Republican government was able to attempt to counter the coup of the Nationalist forces, far longer that possible. So showing the effectiveness of being perceived as the legitimate ruling body.
Thus, back to the Irish political context: In the case for the anti-Treaty forces, they could have pointed for one thing, the unlikelihood of the border commission making any major changes to the existing demarcations, and thus condemning their fellow Irish citizens to a second class existence in Northern Ireland (The ECHR in Northern Ireland by Dickson was an interesting read that gave background information on that).

Jolly Red Giant

Manach wrote: »

Sorry my poor writing - I meant that by having a mandate, the Spanish Republican government was able to attempt to counter the coup of the Nationalist forces, far longer that possible. So showing the effectiveness of being perceived as the legitimate ruling body.

The Republican government was able to resist the fascist coup because it was a revolutionary movement that had the support of the Spanish working class and sections of the peasantry - it had diddly squat to do with the 1936 election. Furthermore the result in terms of seats was completely distorted by the electoral system and the violence between the left and the fascists was already well underway by the time of the election.

Manach wrote: »

Thus, back to the Irish political context: In the case for the anti-Treaty forces, they could have pointed for one thing, the unlikelihood of the border commission making any major changes to the existing demarcations, and thus condemning their fellow Irish citizens to a second class existence in Northern Ireland (The ECHR in Northern Ireland by Dickson was an interesting read that gave background information on that).

I still don't understand the point you are trying to make with this - are you suggesting that this would be how the anti-Treaty forces could have won the civil war?