Civil War in Ulster: Harcourt Papers

Civil War in Ulster

Papers of Sir William Harcourt

Sir William Harcourt was a civil servant servicing the Imperial Defence Committee in the period 1911-1914. His papers are accessible in the Bodleian Library.

The Defence Committee minutes indicate that there was concern about invasion across the North Sea from the east; Erskine Childers' book 'The Riddle of the Sands' presumably was influential in this. The invasion threat was perceived to be from France up to about 1907; only then did it switch to Germany. The key finding however is in the form of the 'dog that didn't bark': in April 1914, when the Larne gun-running was going on, this episode and its implications simply does not appear. There is concern about the Humber and Firth of Forth, and even concern to block plans, when were then current, for a channel tunnel! But no mention of Larne.

In the public press all the talk was about all the troops which 'civil war in Ulster' would tie up, and how imperial defence would be undermined (see appendix). One is forced to conclude that the public fulminations were a political Tory anti-Liberal smokescreen, and that the Imperial Defence people were conniving at it, and not taking it seriously (4.1).

The Germans however, who were reading the public press, probably took it seriously, and it could be argued that they based their strategy of attacking France through Belgium on it; they thought the British were too concerned with their internal troubles to worry about war on the continent. So my father thought, in retrospect; he always regarded the Larne gun-running as one of the factors in the start of the War. I have not seen this aspect of the matter analysed; there has been silence. Importing guns by the shipload, in 1914, from Germany? At Tory instigation, and with Imperial Defence Committee connivance? Was this not treasonable? The instigators ended up in the Government, so presumably treason when it succeeds is no longer called by that name (4.2).

Notes and References: Harcourt

4.1 These aspects are developed at length in Dangerfield's 'Strange Death of Liberal England' (Serif 1997, reprint), cf Ch 2 'the Tory Rebellion'.

4.2 I am again indebted to Peatling for unearthing the fact that this political assessment was articulated by several nationalists during and after the war; see W. O'Brien, The Irish Revolution and How it Came About (London, 1923), p.186, 222-3, ch.12, etc.: R. Lynd, Ireland a Nation (London, 1919), p.10-8: J.J. Horgan, Parnell to Pearse: Some Recollections and Reflections (Dublin, 1948), pp.327-37: A.S.Green, Ourselves Alone in Ulster (London, 1918). Also in the British radical liberal press; see The Daily News, (26 Feb, 1918), p.2, (14 Apr. 1917), p.2: The Nation, vol.22, (9 Feb 1918), p.587-8.

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