Nevil Macready - Ireland

Ireland

In April 1920, Macready was sent to command the troops in Ireland as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) British forces operating in the counter-insurgency role against the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence (alongside Hamar Greenwood as Chief Secretary). He already had pre-existing racist views of the Irish, writing to Ian Macpherson on the latter's appointment as Chief Secretary of Ireland in January 1919: "I cannot say I envy you for I loathe the country you are going to and its people with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that which I feel against the Boche". He later claimed in his memoirs that only loyalty to his "old Chief" Lord French made him accept – he demanded a higher pension than his predecessor and an increase in "table money" (entertainment expenses) from £500 to £1,400 as well as £5,000 "disturbance allowance". He was unimpressed by the administrative chaos in Dublin and the "crass stupidity which is so often found among police officers who have not been carefully selected". Nevertheless, he was a good and dynamic commander, increasing morale, improving policy, and securing additional troops and equipment. He refused to also take command of the Royal Irish Constabulary, however, which reduced coordination between the police and Army. Major-General Hugh Tudor, a distinguished artilleryman, was appointed Police Advisor in May 1920, then Chief of Police in November 1920.

A month after taking up official duties, Macready came to London to demand eight extra battalions of infantry and 234 motor vehicles. Sir Henry Wilson only learned of the request the evening before the Cabinet meeting and thought Macready "a vain ass" for not seeking his advice first. The cabinet agreed on 11 May 1920 to supply the vehicles and as far as possible the extra technical personnel requested, but on Wilson’s advice agreed only to hold the extra battalions "in readiness".

With the army stretched very thinly by the deployment of two extra divisions to Iraq, and the threatened coal strike in September 1920, Macready warned that the planned withdrawal of ten battalions would make peacekeeping in Ireland impossible (unless the Army was given a free hand to conduct purely military operations, which the politicians did not want) and large portions of the RIC would probably change sides. The government pressed ahead with recruiting auxiliaries, whose numbers peaked at 1,500 in July 1921. A military committee of review appointed by the Cabinet, which he chaired, did oppose the recruitment of the Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division, and he continued to be a strident critic of these bodies.

Macready had been initially impressed by Tudor and thought he was getting rid of "incompetent idiots" from senior police positions. Macready and Wilson became increasingly concerned that Tudor, with the connivance of Lloyd George, who loved to drop hints to that effect, was operating an unofficial policy of killing IRA men in reprisal for the deaths of pro-Crown forces. However Macready also told Wilson that the Army was arranging "accidents" for suspected IRA men, but not telling the politicians as he did not want them "talked and joked about after dinner by Cabinet Ministers".

Macready had come to support martial law as he was worried that army and police discipline might otherwise collapse. He advised that ad hoc reprisals by the Black and Tans were not stopping the "murders". After the killing of sixteen Black and Tans in an ambush at Macroom, County Cork, martial law was declared on 10 December 1920 in the four Munster Counties of Cork, Tipperary, Kerry and Limerick. On 23 December, Irish Home Rule became law. Macready attended a special conference on 29 December along with Wilson, Tudor and Sir John Anderson, head of the Civil Service in Dublin, at which they all advised that no truce should be allowed for elections to the planned Dublin Parliament, and that at least four months months of martial law would be required to restore order. The date for the elections was therefore set for May 1921. In accordance with Wilson and Macready's wishes, martial law was extended over the rest of Munster (Counties Waterford and Clare) and part of Leinster (Counties Kilkenny and Wexford).

By 1921, Macready had lost confidence in Tudor and thought the RIC had become unreliable. The Irish War of Independence reached a climax in the first half of 1921, with deaths of pro-Crown forces running at approximately double the rate of those in the second half of 1920.

In April 1921, the cabinet decided to withdraw four of Macready's 51 battalions to meet the possible Triple Alliance strike. Macready believed Ireland could be suppressed in the summer of 1921 with the elections out of the way, not least as troops would otherwise need to be replaced after the strain of guerrilla war. An extra seventeen battalions were sent in June and July, bringing British strength up to 60,000, but the politicians drew back from the brink and opened secret talks with James Craig and Eamon de Valera (who had been born in New York of Spanish descent and whom Macready called Wilson's "Cuban Jew compatriot").

Macready was instrumental in negotiating the truce in July 1921, although he suggested, perhaps in jest, that the entire Irish Dail could be arrested whilst in session. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty and creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, he withdrew the troops without great incident. He retired in 1923 and was created a baronet. He had been sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1920.