A Frozen Spring (relaunched version)

[IanBertram]

My initial aim in devising this ATL was to put German troops into an occupied Tyneside during the severe winter of 1947. This arose out of some short stories I was working on set in that same milieu. I have had at least two attempts including one of those periodic “what if Sealion had succeeded” posts that so annoy people! Since then I have read many of the already published timelines here and elsewhere and come to the conclusion that the only way to get German troops in Newcastle in 1947 is for them to have been invited in. Any change that provided Germany with enough resources to enable Sealion to go ahead successfully would in all probability have led to such a different WWll that Sealion simply wouldn’t arise.

Inviting Germany in requires major changes in the UK and almost certainly means keeping the UK out of the War. I had already settled on a Fascist Britain before stumbling across a scary thread from 1992 on shw-i looking at a similar theme, although in this case it arose before the Nazis. I wanted to have Nazi Germany in all its repulsiveness and in action on Tyneside during that winter.

This ATL would have serious implications for me – I probably wouldn’t exist! I was born in 1946 on Tyneside, my father served in North Africa, an Uncle was at D-Day and my grandfather was at the Somme and Passchendaele, all of which will turn out rather differently as this ATL develops. So – onwards…

The basic premise is generally drawn from George Dangerfield’s book, ‘The Strange Death of Liberal England’, in which he argues that: four great rebellions before the Great War effectively destroyed the Liberal Party as a party of government. These rebellions were the Conservative Party’s fight against the Parliament Act 1911; the threat of civil war in Ireland by the Ulster Unionists under Sir Edward Carson with the encouragement of Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law; the Suffragette movement under the Pankhursts; and the increasingly militant trade unions under the influence of syndicalism.

According to Dangerfield events were building to a major crisis in 1914, which was only prevented by the outbreak of war. In this ATL, I want to explore what might have happened if the impact of these inter-related factors had been just that little worse, starting in 1910 in the period of the 'Great Unrest' between 1900 and 1914, and specifically with the Tonypandy Miners Strike of 1910. In OTL, although troops were called in and used, no deaths ensured. What if however, things had gone badly? A major loss of life in this strike would have a knock on effect throughout the remaining time up to the outbreak of WW1. Even in OTL this period saw a huge increase in the numbers of people involved in strikes and in Trades Union membership.

Events move on from there to take in the Llanelli strike of 1911, where in OTL two men were shot by the army, the Liverpool Transport Strike of 1911, where again 2 men died and on through a whole series of strikes. Add to this the Home Rule crisis, an increasingly militant suffrage movement and as importantly links between these movements via increasingly active syndicalist and socialist groups and things have the potential to turn very nasty, very quickly.

I intend to structure the TL as if it was a documentary history of the period. Each post will be in the form of a letter, diary entry, official report from the period or perhaps a historic analysis of events looking back from a later time period. This means that there may be contradictions between items – no one sees the same event in the same way – in terms of what actually happened or in terms of how significant they might be.

I have the first post about ready so that will follow quite quickly. Any first thoughts on the overall TL would be welcome however. I will say however that I'm still not sure about the jackboots on Tyneside theme - that may be expecting too much. I'm still aiming to end the TL around 1947 though.

 

[IanBertram]

Tonypandy 1910

Journal of the Scottish Association of Socialist History
Vol 4, No 3 Summer 1968, Edinburgh

Extract from: The Workers' Martyrs of the Great Unrest 1910 - 1914
David McKenzie, Department of History, University of Dumfries

Tonypandy, 1910
Following a dispute over the pace of work on a new seam, miners at the Ely Colliery in Tonypandy were locked out by the owners. In response, the South Wales Miners Federation balloted its members and by 1 November 12,000 men were on strike across Glamorgan, in all the pits operated by the Cambrian Combine. In an attempt to break the strike, the owners brought in strike breakers under the protection of police from both the local force and from elsewhere in South Wales and from Bristol.

The presence of so many extra police not surprisingly led to an increased level of picketing by the locked out miners and several skirmishes between miners and police in which the police were hard pressed to hold their own.. By 6th September the local Chief Constable, Capt.Lionel Lindsay, had become so concerned that he telegraphed the War Office to ask for support from the Military. The Home Secretary, Winston Churchill on hearing of the request authorised the sending of an additional 500 officers from the Metropolitan Police, together with a company from the Lancashire Fusiliers and a squadron of the 18th Hussars. The troops were not deployed immediately but held in reserve in Cardiff. The Home Secretary also sent a personal message to the strikers - 'We are holding back the soldiers for the present and sending only police but should the disturbances continue, be aware they will be committed.'

On 7th September a major clash erupted between police and strikers in the Town Square of Tonypandy with many injuries on both sides and serious damage to property, with particular attention being given to businesses operated by directors of the Combine. The level of violence so alarmed Capt. Lindsay that he again telegraphed the Home Secretary demanding that the military be committed immediately. Early on the morning of 8th September, Col. Currey in Cardiff was authorised to dispatch troops in support of the civil powers. The Hussars were sent immediately to patrol the various mining communities in the area. They patrolled throughout the day without incident, but on returning to their quarters in the evening one contingent came to the village of Porth just as a disturbance was breaking out. They intervened and dispersed the crowd by repeated charges, leading to several injuries to strikers. Eventually the Hussars were supported by a contingent from the Metropolitan Police, who drove the crowd from the streets with baton charges. By the end of the day five strikers and two policemen were dead, with many injuries on both sides.

News of the deaths spread rapidly and on the 8th September a huge gathering of strikers gathered in the Town Square of Tonypandy where they were addressed by speakers from the South Wales Miners' Federation and from other unions in Liverpool and Manchester. As the speeches continued the crowd became aware that they were being surrounded by troops and police. Groups of strikers approached the police and troops angrily calling out to them that they too were sons of working men, that the rich ordered one set of workers to kill another. The police stood firm, but as the crowd moved towards the troops, a shot rang out from the Fusiliers and Thomas Jones a miner in the front rank of the crowd fell dead. The anger of the crowd, already high, reached a new pitch and they continued to press forward, despite a further ragged volley of shots, rapidly overrunning the troops and in their fury wresting from many of them the guns that had just killed their comrades. The order was immediately given for the troops to withdraw, which they did with some difficulty, before into the mel[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]éé[/FONT] charged a group of horsemen of the Hussars. Many strikers were cut down as the cavalry rode through the crowd of strikers before continuing without pause into the larger crowd of men, women and children behind them. As the screams of the crowd rose, the men of the Metropolitan Police looked on in horror.

The Hussars, having ridden through the crowd, regrouped to return. Before they had the chance to do so, some of the watching police broke ranks and ran into the crowd, attempting to give aid to the dead, dying and injured. Witness reports given to the 1912 Inquiry, record one officer standing up with the body of a small boy in his arms and screaming incoherently at the impassive Hussars. The officer in charge of the Met Police contingent, Inspector James Parnell, observing the scene before him rapidly ordered some of his men to place themselves between the cavalry and the crowd while the rest were detailed to give aid to the injured. A sergeant was despatched to seek medical help and to report back on the situation to the Chief Constable and to the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police in London. For the time being, the threat of further disorder was gone as dazed men and women moved among the dozens of bodies looking for family and friends.

A nearby school was requisitioned as a field hospital, while bodies were taken to the adjoining chapel, which became a mortuary. By the next morning the death toll was clear. In addition to Jones, four more men had died from gunshot wounds, while two more remained gravely ill. A further eight had died from injuries received inflicted by the charge of the Hussars, either from sabre cuts or from being trampled by the horses. Only two of these were men, of the remainder, three were women and three were children of 9, 7 and 5 years of age. One family was completely dead, with grandfather, son, his wife and son all lying in the mortuary. A further 15 were seriously injured. The number of minor injuries were unknown as many had left the area without seeking treatment for fear of being arrested.
The news of the death of 13 men, women and children at the hands of the army rapidly spread around the kingdom. Riots broke out in several towns as working men gathered to protest what were widely seen as murders. As unrest spread, the King cabled the Home Secretary saying

Accounts from across the Kingdom suggest that the situation is more like revolution than strike actions.

It was not to end in Tonypandy.

 

[IanBertram]

CONFIDENTIAL ENQUIRY INTO THE RECENT DISTURBANCES
*
Summary of Report by V Kell (Capt)
*
To the Right Hon WINSTON S. CHURCHILL M.P. (Home Secretary)

1. I was asked by you on 17th November “to examine available intelligence on the disturbances that occurred in 1910 and 1911, to identify any evidence of subversive activity and to make recommendations for legislative or other actions that might be taken to counter any such activity. I was asked to complete my work and issue a report within a period of one month. It has not, however, been found possible to carry out a full enquiry and submit a report in less than five weeks from the initial instruction. Whilst the limitation of time has to some extent narrowed the scope of the enquiry, it has also operated as a stimulus to everyone concerned to carry out the work with the utmost despatch compatible with efficiency.
2. A digest of intelligence reports garnered from informers and other sources is attached as an Appendix. These reports show that there is a strong feeling of patriotism on the part of employers throughout the country and they are determined to help the State in its present crisis. Feelings of a revolutionary character are not entertained by the bulk of the men, but there is a significant minority about whom this cannot be said. While the majority of the workmen are sensible of the national difficulties, especially in the period of trial and stress through which we are now passing, the seditious minority has a loud voice and can in the right circumstances prove very persuasive of men caught up in the tumult of a strike or otherwise in straightened circumstances.
3. There is also significant evidence of a degree of cooperation between these seditious elements, such that while at this stage it does not appear that there is a single guiding hand behind the totality of the disturbances, there is sufficient communication between them, to give cause for concern that such a central figure may yet emerge. Insofar as a significant cause can be identified, it lies in the pernicious growth of that doctrine sometimes called Syndicalism, but in more common parlance as Communism or Anarchism.
4. At a very early stage in my investigations it was forcibly borne in upon me that the question of food prices was also an important cause of unrest. The high prices of staple commodities have undoubtedly laid a severe strain upon the majority of the working classes, and in some instances have resulted in hardship and actual privation. While it is no doubt true that in some industries wages have risen to such an extent as largely to compensate for the increased cost of living, but there are workers whose wages have been raised very slightly, if at all, and some whose earnings have actually diminished, and on these the high food prices have borne heavily. Joined to the sense of actual hardship, there is undoubtedly a deep-seated conviction in the minds of the working classes that the prices of food have risen not only through scarcity, but as the result of manipulation of prices by unscrupulous producers and traders, who, it is alleged, owing to lack of courageous action on the part of the Government, have succeeded in making fabulous profits at the expense of the consumers. It is this last perception that is feeding the growth in Communistic tendencies among working men and which is so dangerous.
5. I present in Section I a chronological digest of events as they unfolded, incorporating conclusions drawn ex post from intelligence reports. Section II contains my recommendations for further action.

Section I
Chronological Digest of Events

1. Despite the prominence of the recent disturbances in Wales and Liverpool, the problems appear to have much earlier roots. The revolution in Russia of 1905 gave hope to many whose cause had up till then been flagging. The large scale disturbances in Belfast in 1907 were perhaps the first inkling that those ideas were beginning to gain sympathy in these Isles. It is well known that prime movers in those disturbances were two admitted Communists, Tom Mann and Ben Tillet. In these two men, together with the persons of James Larkin and James Connolly we begin also to see a worrying coming together of Fenian and Socialist agitation.
2. We have no evidence of any such agitators being involved in the earliest of the 1910 disturbances at Tonypandy. The situation that led to the unfortunate deaths was certainly exacerbated by a degree of indiscipline on the part of the troops that in turn resulted from a lack of firm leadership from officers. The first shot seems to have been an accidental discharge of his weapon by one soldier. The reaction of the crowd to this led the rest of the party to fear for their lives and to open fire without explicit orders. Despite this they were still overrun by the rioters, whereupon the local commander had no option but to order the squadron of Hussars forward. Here was another failure. The men were equipped with batons in addition to their normal sabres and carbines, but in the absence of specific orders they used that with which they were most familiar, their sabres. In addition, because the crowd were pressing hard upon the rioters, the Hussars were unable to rein in their mounts in time to avoid riding into that larger gathering, leading to the further deaths of women and children. The men behaved in an exemplary fashion however and all of the deaths of women and children bar one were the result of injuries sustained in the mêlée and not deliberate action.
3. The exception is one woman who was shot. There were no women in the first group that attacked the infantrymen and it is believed that her injuries were caused by a round passing unhindered through the front ranks of men into the crowd close behind. No specific blame can however be laid to the men who fired and caused this unhappy event, since she was present of her own volition at a riotous gathering.
4. The rifles taken from the soldiers when they were overrun have not been recovered, despite the best endeavours of the local police, supplemented by officers from Scotland Yard who have carried out numerous searches in the area. In the light of later events, which I describe further below, this remains an area of urgent concern.
5. Following the events in Tonypandy, sporadic violence continued for several weeks across South Wales, requiring troops to be used on at least eleven separate occasions. On three of these it became necessary to open fire. The first of these was in Tredegar, following a night of violence when numerous businesses were looted. A party of soldiers came upon a group of men attempting to break into a local quarry yard. Being aware of the likely presence of explosives, the officer in charge gave orders to open fire. One man was killed immediately, whereupon the rest fled. No attempt was made to pursue, but a runner was sent immediately to the local HQ to advise of what had happened, while the men secured the yard against further attempts at theft.
6. Initially the violence in Tredegar was directed at premises of Jewish pawnbrokers et cetera who had provided monies during the strike. It seems that some of the less intelligent of the rioters had taken to themselves the idea that if the businesses were burnt out, they would not have to repay what they owned. As the night progressed however the violence became apparently more indiscriminate, but it should be noted that amongst the businesses attacked were those owned by local agents of mine owners and other dignitaries such as magistrates. Troops had cause to open fire on two further occasions that same night, without further fatalities. Fortunately local press owners were sympathetic to requests not to publish information on either the stolen rifles or the attempted theft of explosives so this has not become generally known in the area. It would be advisable to look at ways in which these matters might be dealt with more expeditiously in future.
7. Later intelligence points to the presence in the area of two or three men variously described as 'not local', 'foreign' or 'Irish' who spoke at several meetings of strikers and other workers using language that can only be described as seditious, including incitement to 'attack the bosses'. Despite the most strenuous inquiries, these men remain at large. They may have had Fenian or Socialist ends, or they may have been agents of Germany desirous of sowing the seeds of unrest for the future. On the information currently available no further conclusions can be drawn as to their origins.
8. Disturbances continued throughout 1910 mainly across the North of England and in Scotland, while the Welsh miners strike continued until in 1911. Many of these strikes involved large numbers of workers, but most were settled quickly. Troops were used again in Wales to quell disturbances, but largely because of their ready availability than strict necessity. The main concern is that existing union leaders were often caught unawares by these wildcat strikes and the leaders who emerged appeared to have strong Communist leanings.
9. At the beginning of 1911 matters however took a severe turn for the worse. The Communist inspired, so-called 'Reform Committee' had already resolved in 1910 to try to gain control of, and then to administer, all industry and in pursuit of this objective began fomenting strikes wherever possible. Sympathisers of this creed had been active in many disputes already, including the Belfast Dock strike of 1907. Known associates of Mann and Tillett were active in Llanelly and many other locations, while Mann himself played a large part in the railway strikes of 1911 and especially in the major disturbances in Liverpool. In South Wales the miners' strike reached a bloody conclusion. It cannot be a coincidence that these people, who regularly professed themselves to be against any central authority, used their influence to undermine the respectable leadership of the unions as much as the authority of Government.
10. The main centre of dissent was in Liverpool, but intelligence reports indicate that was the culmination of a deliberate campaign of subversive activity amongst workers in a wide range of industries over the year. The year opened with a strike by ship-repairers working in Liverpool. Mann and Tillett were openly instrumental in fomenting this strike. Like-motivated agitators were at work in Glasgow in March, when perhaps 12000 workers in the Singer Sewing Machine Company began a long strike and in Bermondsey when a coordinated strike was called amongst food workers across a dozen or so separate factories. In May seamen began to take action in numerous ports across the country soon supported by dockworkers and railway workers. Further strikes took place of engineering and transport workers on at least a dozen occasions between May and August.
11. The cumulative effect of these strikes, almost always accompanied by civil disorder, was to stretch the capacity of local police forces to the limit. In many cases, Chief Constables have reported that they had serious doubts of their ability to maintain order and were often concerned that police officers may be unwilling to intervene in industrial disputes affecting their own locality, even when those disputes had led to major outbreaks of disorder, rioting and worse.
12. By August of 1911, the country was perhaps as close in some localities as it has been for many years to a revolutionary situation. I was not asked to consider the implications for civil disorder of the growing tensions in Ireland between the Orange and Republican factions , but available intelligence leads me to believe that this may yet become a factor on the mainland. Sectarian disputes broke out in Liverpool and in Glasgow over the year. Those in Liverpool only ceased when the combatants found common cause in the strike that almost entirely closed down the City and led to the dispatch of a large force of troops.
13. The situation deteriorated rapidly, leading the Lord Mayor and Chief Magistrate to issue a warning to citizens to keep off the streets as much as possible for their own safety.
    ‘Large numbers of persons have assembled in the disturbed streets for the purpose of seeing what is going on, and I warn all such persons that if the Authorities are called upon to act, innocent citizens are likely to be injured as those against whom any drastic measures on the part of the Police or the Military are directed.’
14. In the end some 4000 troops including both infantrymen and cavalry were dispatched to the City together with some 500 additional police officers from the surrounding areas. In addition HMS Antrim was stationed in the harbour with other naval units held on standby in Douglas.
15. Despite this massive display of force it took some time before control over the city could be reasserted. Relationships between police and the military were not good and on more than one occasion, precipitate action by the police created situations of such disorder that the intervention of the army was needed to take control. Although deaths did not reach such a level as Tonypandy, this was not by design and for several days the City was on a knife edge between peace and major disorder that could have caused serious loss of life and major damage to property. Those deaths that did occur were amongst Catholic members of the population and their funerals offered a great opportunity amongst local Republican groups to drum up support for their colleagues in Ireland, so offering yet another opportunity for Fenian and Socialist agitators to make common cause.
16. Unrest also flared up afresh in South Wales, this time in Llanelly, where strikers besieged the railway station. All movement of rail traffic to Ireland on this important line was halted, just as tensions were growing between Orangemen and Fenians. Had it been necessary to ship major forces to Ireland this dispute would have been a serious hindrance. Similar stories of 'outsiders' speaking at meetings of the men and inciting them to violent action emerged as in Tonypandy. Given the importance of this line it is not impossible that the events here were indeed linked to the troubles in Ireland. Two men were killed when at one point it seemed likely that the police would entirely lose control. Aimed shots were directed at rioters and the rest dispersed. Later attempts were made to break into the arnoury of the local Yeomanry and four men were killed in an explosion when they broke into a railway wagon carrying explosives for the mines.
17. Nationally the rail strike caused great disruption. Troops were dispatched to London, Carlisle, York, Darlington, Bishop Auckland, Hull, Goole, Chesterfield, Gloucester, Lincoln, Bristol, Glasgow, Southampton, Swansea, Manchester and Plymouth, while other lesser disturbances took place in other localities. Major damage was caused to railway property in several locations including Bristol, Chesterfield and Lincoln. Naval units were dispatched to several ports including Hull, Liverpool Glasgow and Southampton, while reserve ships were stationed in Douglas and at Barrow.
18. In total, some 60,000 troops were dispatched, while four warships and eight other naval vessels were deployed. Such a call on the services of the military is unprecedented in the past century. If disturbances on the scale of those in Liverpool were to occur simultaneously in two or three other locations, then even with full mobilisation we would have difficulty in containing things. The recent rail strike, even though largely concentrated in the North, Scotland and South Wales greatly disrupted the movement of troops and police to areas of greatest need.
19. Should conditions in Ireland also deteriorate, we could almost certainly have to call back units from abroad, so affecting our ability to respond militarily to an emergency elsewhere. It is certainly the case that our enemies both internal and external are as aware of this as we are and we must therefore to be ready to take the most severe action necessary to bring the country back to conditions of normality.

Section II
Recommendations
…

 

[IanBertram]

South Wales Chronicle
March 14 1911

Tonypandy Riots -Affecting evidence to Inquest

The inquest into the deaths that occurred in the riots in Tonypandy of last year has just opened. On the first day, the Coroner heard evidence from Officers and serving men and also from relatives of the deceased.
…

When called to the stand, the sad figure of Mr Hugh Edwards, a draper from Tonypandy was an affecting sight, his wife having been shot by troops in the Town Square of Tonypandy, and his son and grand-daughter grievously injured. By chance he was called to give evidence of the circumstances surrounding her death, immediately after the officer commanding the troops on that fateful day. His account was so baldly given and so graphic in its detail that one or two ladies in the public gallery had to be removed in great distress. There was such a marked difference between his accounts and that of Capt. Blenkinsopp immediately preceding him, that the Coroner asked him to confirm his statements on numerous occasions. The public gallery became so rowdy as he continued to speak that the Coroner had to call a halt for quiet on several occasions.

Following is as faithful a rendering of his answers when questioned by the Coroner as can be made, so that readers can judge for themselves the veracity of his statements.

C: What is your name and profession?
E: My name is Hugh Edwards. I am a draper at 7 Town Square, Tonypandy.
C: You also reside at that address?
E: That is correct. My family have quarters immediately above the shop.
C: How many people reside at that address?
E: Myself, two sons and at the time of the incident my wife, Elizabeth.
C: Please tell us what you were doing just before the death of your wife.
E: Because of the meeting that was planned for that evening, we had stayed open a little later in the hope of getting a little business from the women we expected to be attending. At about 7.15 on that evening, we had just closed up. I was cashing up the small takings while my youngest son Hugh and my wife went to put up the shutters.
C: Were you expecting trouble?
E: Not from the meeting, but a few days earlier we had a window broken by a member of the police.
C: What were the circumstances of that breakage?
E: It was at about 5.00 of the evening. I was just locking up when a policemen appeared at the door demanding entry. He appeared to be in drink and was alone, so I thought it likely that this was not official business so I refused to open up.
C: And what happened next?
E: He swore at me with many oaths then knocked out a pane of glass from the door with his truncheon. I then told him to leave and that he was a disgrace to his uniform. He swore at me again but did leave.

Cries of “Shameful” were heard from the gallery at this point.

C: Did you recognise this officer?
E: No sir, he was not a local man. I judged him from his uniform to be from Bristol.

More noise erupted.

C: So having regard to that incident you decided to close your shutters in future when the shop was closed?
E: At that time we had no shutters, but my eldest son, George, made me some the next day.
C: So, returning to the evening of your wife's death...

At this point proceedings had to be halted to allow Mr Edwards to recover his composure. After a short break, the Coroner resumed his questions.

C: I am sorry to put you to this Mr Edwards, but I am sure you realise we must delve to the bottom of this matter.
E: I understand Sir.
C: So, to return. What happened, while your wife and son were putting up the shutters.
E: I heard a great commotion arising in the crowd. My wife called out to me “The soldiers are here, Hugh. Come and help us get these shutters up quickly.” Before I could around the counter to the door however, I heard the sound of shots banging into the wall of the shop.
C: You are positive this was shots?
E: Yes sir. I served in South Africa in the service of the late Queen and I am very familiar with the sound.

Some laughter came at this aside in the gallery, whereupon the Coroner admonished them that this was not a laughing matter.

C: What rank, Mr Edwards?
E: Sergeant, Sir.

Calls of “Good man” from the gallery.

C: Thank you. Please go on.
E: After the shots hit the building I heard my wife and son both call out. I rushed to the door and found my wife laying on the ground and my son on his knees beside her. “They've killed Ma”, he cried out as I came into the street. When I saw her, I knew that she was mortally wounded. She had blood all across her breast and shoulder and it was running in the street beneath her. She had been hit twice, once in the shoulder and the other through the heart.

More cries from the gallery at this point, several women being overcome and sobbing.

C: Where were the soldiers at this point?
E: From the front of my shop, the meeting was directly opposite while the soldiers were on my right. The crowd had by them almost surrounded them and I heard further shots. I saw more men fall, then the soldiers disappeared in the crowd.
C: Captain Blenkinsopp of the 18th Hussars in his evidence has said that the shots that killed your wife must have gone through the crowd without hitting anyone before striking her.
E: No Sir. If shots had been aimed at the crowd, they would have to be an uncommonly bad shot or very neglectful of their duties for those shots to have hit my wife. They must have been aimed at her, Sir.

The gallery again became very rowdy, with cat calls directed at the Captain of Hussars still sitting resplendent in his uniform in the body of the court, not yet having been released by the Coroner.

C: Very well. Did you see anything after this point Mr Edwards?
E: I was very distressed at the injuries to my wife, Sir, and was attempting to tend to her, so I was not paying close attention to events in the Square. However, I heard the soldiers ordered to fall back and then heard the sound of horses, followed by screams and shouts. I looked up to see the cavalrymen had ridden into the crowd of men who had surrounded the soldiers and were laying about with their sabres, although I think one or two were using batons.
C: What happened next?
A: The cavalry burst through the crowd of miners and hit the group of men and women and some children who had come for the meeting.
C: Did they pull up at that point?
E: No sir, they carried on full tilt.

More rowdiness erupted, at which point the Coroner threatened to clear the court unless it ceased.

C: Captain Blenkinsopp has said that the crowd of women and children was too close in upon the group attacking the soldiers for them to avoid riding into them.
A: I have seen cavalry in action sir, and it was not necessary. From the outset they went at full tilt, which was not needed. A troop of men riding down upon you, even at a canter will shift the most hardened of civilians. Nor did they have to use their sabres, since they all had batons. Most of all Sir, there must have been 40 yards between the miners who had been fighting and the women and children behind them. They had plenty of room to turn aside, but they kept on riding straight at them in the main. I saw perhaps half a dozen pull up.
C: One final question Mr Edwards. You say you have two sons. The youngest was by his mother's side when she was shot. Where was the eldest?
A: He is a miner Sir and was on strike. He was standing with his wife and daughter when the cavalry attacked them.

At this point Captain Blenkinsopp tried to offer a protest, but was silenced by the Coroner, saying “You will have your turn again Captain, for I am not finished with you yet”

C: And were they injured?
E: All three of them sir. My son had a broken leg, his wife a cut to her head and my grand-daughter was trampled under a horse. She lost both of her legs, Sir.

The simple dignity of this humble draper as he delivered this statement finally overcame the normally impassive Coroner, who bowed his head for a moment before continuing.

C: I think we will adjourn at that point until 10.00 tomorrow morning.

The shocking descriptions of the events given by Mr Edwards had left many in the public gallery in tears, both men and women. The courtroom fell silent as all considered what they had heard. The silence was only broken by the sound of Capt. Blenkinsopp's boots striking the floor as he strode from the room.

...

 

[IanBertram]

Suffragism turns nasty!

From Aristocrat to Revolutionary - the letters of Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald
Volume 1 1905-1919
Published by the Limerick Workers Press 1955

Ballincarron House, Limerick

Mrs Cecilia Connolly
McAllister House
Otago
New Zealand

December 5th 1910

My Dearest Cissy,

I know my last letter to you is almost certainly still at sea, but so much has happened since I wrote that I am simply bursting with news and cannot wait.

Mother has I know written to tell you of our return to Ireland, I'm afraid poor Father found my involvement with the suffragists too much to bear, especially after your being caught up in the vivisection protestations over that poor dog in the Medical School.[1] Of course you have no need of suffragists, since women have had the vote in New Zealand since 1893, but we are still not not so advanced I am afraid back home. It looked for a while last year as if there might be a change and a Bill was in Parliament. It might have passed too, if that appalling Mr Asquith had not reneged on his promises to Mrs Pankhurst.

I'm sure you have by now heard about the women's protest outside Parliament. You won't know however that I WAS THERE!!! Yes, your meek little sister Charlotte! I was carrying my purple banner,waving my flags and shouting along with thousands of other women. I'm sure poor father would have dropped dead on the spot to see me, but it was SO exciting, at least at first.

I fear I am getting ahead of myself. However, before I say more, I must ask you not to breathe a word of what I am to write, even to dear George.

Everything was very carefully planned. There were lots of meetings around London beforehand where Mrs P or one of her daughters gave us details of the plan and how it would all work out. We were all to dress in our finery to avert suspicion and to arrive in the area of Parliament Square in small groups. On the signal, we were simply to walk forwards into the Square. It seems though that the government were forewarned, because there were lots of policemen waiting for us.

At first they were quite amused as we walked towards them arm in arm and singing. Then they realised that even 5000 policemen cannot stand against 30000 determined women [2]. They started to become rougher in their dealings, charging into the line of women and breaking it apart, only to find themselves surrounded and having to struggle free again. We offered no violence to them, we simply walked forward. In return I am afraid we were were badly treated. I saw women knocked to the ground by punches and by blows of the truncheon, there to be kicked!

Bystanders took advantage of the disorder too, laying hold of women, mishandling them in most indecent ways. One such creature tried to grab me, but I am afraid to say I and Harriet, who stayed by my side throughout this sorry affair, surrendered our feminine instincts and beat him with the sticks of our banners to such effect that he fled.

Others were not so lucky. I saw another woman dragged away down a side street, the beasts taking her tearing at her clothes as they took her, she screaming all the while. The police who saw it simply laughed and returned to bludgeoning the poor women before them.

O Cissie, I have never seen such things! I could not believe that Englishmen, worse policemen could behave so. I felt as if I was in the midst of a crowd of wild animals, for as the hours wore on, yes my dearest, hours, many of the women involved also descended into some lower order. I saw women howling like beasts as they set about some policeman, while a few feet away a group of police were manhandling a woman outrageously, tearing her clothes from her very body.

The battle, for that is what it was, lasted from 11 in the morning until almost 5 in the evening, without break and without quarter on either side. In the end of course, with their greater strength and greater willingness to use brute force, the police prevailed. Across the whole of Parliament Square, women lay collapsed on the ground, many bleeding, some senseless, lying amidst torn clothing and broken and bloody banners, ignored by the police as they tended to their own injured.

Something changed in England on that day, Cissie.

As for myself, I resolved that this could not go on. I could no longer support the Pankhursts in what seemed like a quest to achieve ever greater levels of violence, arson and destruction. Indeed on the very next day Downing Street was the scene of almost a repeat of the Battle of Parliament Square, while that evening windows were shattered across the City, in gentlemen's clubs, political offices and many other buildings. There was even an attempt to burn down Westminster Hall.

On my return home, battered and worn, Father was not amused. He had tolerated to a degree my spouting “suffragist cant” as he called it, but he was not willing to see his daughter “brawling in the street like a common criminal”. He became much less angry the next day when he saw for himself the same behaviour by police in Downing Street, but he immediately made plans to move the whole household back to Limerick regardless of plans for the Season.

I must confess that I did not care about missing the Season. I have found that I have less and less in common with the empty headed girls flocking to be presented. Indeed after the Battle, I found myself to have more in common with my maid Carson, who tended to my wounds and understood the loss I felt that matters had sunk so low.

I became of a mind that so long as women's suffrage was presented as a War between men and women, nothing would be achieved except at great cost to both sexes. I resolved to look for something that would bring the sexes together in search of a greater common good. I know that I am not alone, that other members of our Movement were equally alarmed by what happened on that day and since. We will I am sure, one day soon, find a way forward in harmony between men and women and between all classes, something alas that Mrs P and her daughters are unlikely to find to their taste.

I will write more tomorrow, I am so exhausted by recalling that awful day that I can do no more for now.
…
[1] The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Edwardian England from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration of University of London medical lectures by Swedish women activists, pitched battles between medical students and the police, police protection for the statue of a dog, a libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, and the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments.
[2] Estimates of the numbers present vary. It is unclear whether Lady Charlotte figures are hyperbole or she has some intelligence of actual numbers from her then involvement with the WSPU.


META COMMENT: Apart from the invention of Lady Charlotte, there isn't much in this that didn't actually occur in OTL. The Battle of Parliament Square was pretty much as described as was Downing Street a day later. If anything Downing Street was worse in that it involved direct confrontations between Asquith and the suffragists and later with Churchill, who behaved very badly towards a friend of his wife, to the extent that a few weeks later someone attempted to horsewhip him while on a train journey because of his behaviour.See Chapter Three of Dangerfield in the bibliography. It is the outcome in the last few sentences that will be important.

 

[IanBertram]

Disunited Kingdom – the fall of Britain and the loss of Empire 1910-1914

Published by the Communist Workers Party, Johannesburg, 1991
Eric Obstbaum
About the author
Comrade Obstbaum was born in Egypt to Austrian parents. He and his parents fled Berlin for South Africa to escape the oppression of National Socialist Germany, after being refused entry to Britain in 1933.

Introduction
In 1900, Britain was a prosperous country with an economy in good shape and politically stable. Within 20 years it was beginning to fragment and within 40 it had fallen to the status of a minor power. The story of the country's decline and fall over the that brief period and of the struggle between Australia, Canada and South Africa for dominance over the remnants of the old Empire, is well known. Indeed that struggle still affects relationships between those countries even now. What however caused that catastrophic decline? How did an Empire that straddled the world fall apart so quickly and with such ruinous effects on the home country? It is these questions I intend to address In this pamphlet. The fallout from this event has dominated 20th century politics and it is incumbent upon socialists everywhere to acquire an honest assessment of what those early British revolutionaries were attempting to do, how they did it, and what caused their revolution’s eventual degeneration. It is my thesis that the answers can be found in the short period immediately before the First War, where the the stresses in British society began the disastrous slide from Imperial hegemonic power to post-industrial decline.

Several interlocking factors were at work. First, the increasing militancy of workers. That militancy was unstructured and often dominated by groups with an incorrect understanding of the situation, but it was real. Second was the destructive conflict between Loyalist and Nationalist forces in Ireland, a conflict that spilled over from time to time onto the mainland. This conflict was destructive because it diverted progressive working class activism into petty nationalism and provided cover for a series of repressive measures by the state. The third factor was the growing demand for women's suffrage. While a demand for votes within the capitalist system was not of itself a progressive activity, those demands exposed the power structures within that system and demonstrated how far the holders of power were willing to go to keep it. The fourth factor was the mobilisation of the officer group within the British Army as a political force. Initially triggered by a concern that the army was to be used against Loyalists in the North of Ireland, the raised political awareness of this group was a sea change in relationships between the army and wider British society. The widening of membership of the officer class during the Great War created further schisms and opened up the possibility of different sections of the military standing with different groups, in particular the workers they were soon to be called upon to suppress. By exposing the class basis of the power structures, significant numbers of the lower ranks began to see the need to organise to protect their own class, sometimes with officer support, even to the extent of mutiny.

Worker Militancy
As early as the 1890s, troops had appeared on the streets of Northern towns to suppress dissent and to force strikers back to work. In 1893, two strikers were shot dead in the town of Featherstone, while in 1907 a massive strike in Belfast was put down with major force by the military leading to yet more deaths. Despite this, by 1910 militancy was growing and trade unions were experiencing a massive increase in membership.

That militancy was not however revolutionary. Its main concern was to secure an improvement in living standards in a period where real wages were falling for the working classes at the same time as landowners – especially mine owners – were seen as taking ever greater and greater amounts of money out of their holdings. The vast majority of workers involved in strike action in this early period had no more than an inchoate sense of unfairness and so far as they saw a remedy it was simply in more money for their work. The Trades Union leadership were by and large happy with this state of affairs since any disturbance to the status quo in the form of more radical political or social change would also affect their own position. Class consciousness had not begun to emerge.

It was with the uprising in Tonypandy, where the first major clashes between workers and the British State took place, that a more revolutionary consciousness began to emerge. In the absence of a revolutionary leadership, this growing consciousness was vulnerable, to opportunism and to counter-revolutionary forces. From a revolutionary perspective the most serious threat was the growth of syndicalism, that strand of anarchism which concentrates on local action in the work place and ignores the worker's most powerful tool, their collective political power as a class.

Despite that, gains were made. In Tonypandy some workers clearly recognised the need to prepare for much worse repressive behaviour. Explosives and weapons were seized and organisational work was done to build up cadres. In Llanelly in 1911, further clashes took place and these rumbled on across the country in numerous locations but with most success in Liverpool. It was Liverpool that the best chance of a truly revolutionary movement emerged, only for that chance to fade away because of a lack of revolutionary consciousness among local leaders and a sell-out to the bosses by the national trades union leadership, frightened that in the chaos of revolution they would lose their privileged status.

As Lenin puts it in What is to be Done:

Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes. ​

​

The failure of the leadership to recognise this and the insistence by syndicalists on the trade union as the central organising body and the general strike as the central task of a revolutionary movement, led to the ultimate failure of the Liverpool rising (and similar post war events in Glasgow) opening the door to the defeat of the left by counter-revolutionaries and eventually the rise of the militarist ultra-right Silver Badge movement that in turn evolved into the Argentist Party. To again quote Lenin:

The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness," that is, combining into unions, etc. Socialist theory, however, in Russia, as elsewhere in Europe, was the product of the "educated representatives of the propertied classes", the intellectuals or "revolutionary socialist intellectuals.​

​

The initial successes in Liverpool of syndicalist organisers like Mann in Liverpool, because they were rooted in a defective understanding of the true revolutionary situation proved not to be sustainable, while in Ireland and to a lesser degree in the rest of Britain, sectarian conflicts distorted the development of a united working class movement out of a historical tradition of resistance to the British landed classes into petty nationalism.
...
EDIT 3/03/2020
Meta
This is of course Eric Hobsbawn the Marxist historian. Obviously the UK in 1933 in this TL is very different to ours. How different? We'll see

 

[IanBertram]

Interlude

Letter from Captain Charles Blenkinsopp to his brother, serving in India.


Liverpool 1911
…

The last few days in Liverpool have been pretty bloody, but an incident last evening provided a little in the way of light relief. Some of the men on patrol near the docks, close to where HMS Antrim is moored brought to me a character they suspected of being a spy. He had been seen by an infantry patrol earlier in the day, apparently sketching the dockside facilities but had eluded capture. Later he was seen again by my men who this time made sure of his capture and brought him to me.

He was a weaselly little figure, pale, with dark hair swept to one side and a shrivelled excuse for a moustache under his nose. You will know how Hussars are inordinately proud of their long moustachios so this toothbrush of his was the subject of much ribaldry on their part. He spoke no English, or at least would not admit to it. I ascertained, using my limited German, that he was an Austrian. I looked at his drawings and they were pathetic daubs, certainly not the drawings of a spy.

Without any other information, I could not hold him, so I told the men to set him loose. To be on the safe side we destroyed his drawings, although I kept one of the better ones as a souvenir of my time here, and sent him on his way under instructions to stay away from the docks in future. They took him away with much twirling of moustaches and loud laughter. I don't suppose we will ever hear from him again.

 

[IanBertram]

Extract from “A Life in Public Service” by George Ranken Askwith, Baron Askwith of St

Extract from “A Life in Public Service” by George Ranken Askwith, Baron Askwith of St Ives, London 1928.

The year 1911 did not begin well. The Welsh miner's strike dragged on, with some 300,000 men involved. Over the year the country was harassed by numerous 'wildcat' strikes, none of any great duration, but cumulatively amounting to thousands of days lost production. It seemed that the Trades Union leadership was becoming more and more out of touch with the mood of the men they represented. I spent much of the year travelling from one dispute to another, mediating as much between the men and their leaders as between the leaders and their employers.

The fault appeared to be not with the men, but with their leaders who to a man were ineffectual and weak. Not surprisingly, when a leader emerged who was strong and forceful they stood out. Unfortunately those effective leaders were also radical socialists, who used their success in securing improvements in working conditions to promulgate their pernicious philosophy. The most prominent of these was probably Tom Mann. Highly intelligent, with a vigorous manner, he refused to be seduced by the blandishments of office and remained 'one of the men.' His ability and his wide ranging influence in many industries made him in my mind a great threat, not just to industrial peace, but to the security of the country. I was particularly fearful of an eruption of violence such as had occurred in Tonypandy the previous year and which had continued sporadically ever since. Mann had never publicly advocated such violence, but his subversion of the established structures of the Trades Unions in favour of direct action by the men made it obvious to me that serious civil unrest was a real possibility. I used every opportunity available to ensure that the threat he posed was made clear, not just to the President [of the Board of Trade], but also to the Home Secretary, in whose hands lay matters of domestic security.

Through such contacts and my own sources, I became aware too of dangerous links appearing between the likes of Mann and certain elements of Irish Nationalism. I had already seen similar tactics as were being used by Mann in both Belfast and Dublin and was concerned to see these formerly separate movements had begun to make contact.

January 1911 also saw a major strike of ship repair workers and others in Liverpool that lasted over three months, largely to the intervention of Mann and one of his associates Ben Tillet. Eventually however, I was able to secure a reconciliation between the men and their leaders and therefore an end to the dispute. Mann and Tillet however made inroads elsewhere, leading to the creation in Liverpool of the so-called 'Reform Committee' with the express intent of undermining the official Trades Union leadership and subverting government authority.

 

[IanBertram]

The revolution begins

It was a small step at the time. Faced with dissent and political violence at home, the Spanish Government sought advice in 1907 from Britain on the appointment of someone to create and direct a secret service bureau that would, in the words of a press report at the time, “wage war on anarchists and people suspected of bomb outrages”. Chief Inspector Charles Arrow, newly retired from Scotland Yard was recommended for the role by the then head of CID in the Metropolitan Police, Sir Melville Macnaghten.

It isn't clear why Arrow's name was put forward. He had no previous experience of dealing with political or even gang crime. He had particular expertise in dealing with blackmailers and domestic murders – the so-called crimes of passion so beloved of cheap novelettes of the period. Despite this he appears to have taken to his new role with relish.

In a newspaper interview in 1926 he was quoted as saying:

“I was always guarded by armed men. My hotel and my offices were protected day and night by machine gunners. I always carried two guns when I went out; I kept my hand on one in my pocket at all times – just like a Chicago Gangster – and carried the other in a hip pocket. At the most violent period in 1909, the streets leading to my hotel were barricaded but the hotel was often fired on by snipers on rooftops. The hotel chef was killed in his bed by a ricochet and two members of my guard were shot dead at different times. I was constantly receiving death threats but I did not let them worry me over much. I just looked on them as an old Spanish custom.”
​

After about 3 years Arrow returned to Britain. He later alleged that his dismissal was the price paid by the Spanish government for a truce with the revolutionaries, but stories also emerged, admittedly from the revolutionary side, of excessive violence and summary executions on the part of his bureau.

His return to Britain in 1910 coincided with the beginnings of the that period before the outbreak of war called by many 'The Great Unrest' – a period of religious and political ferment so extreme that it destabilised the very fabric of British society. Arrow's evident disdain for foreigners shown in his comment about 'old Spanish customs' was soon expressed publicly in various newspaper articles and extended generally to cover the Irish and Jews. He also seems to have retained a taste for anti-left wing activities. His name was linked from time to time with various right wing groups, such as the British Brothers League. His association with these groups brought him into contact with many prominent figures on the right of British politics, including John Pretyman Newman, Charles Burn, Robert Burton-Chadwick and most notorious of all perhaps, Noel Pemberton Billing. In the post war years he exploited these links to the full.

In 1911, he made his first overt step into public life in the UK, setting up the Silver Arrow Agency. Nominally this was a private inquiry agency, although his client list included many major industrialists, banks and some government departments, such as the Northern Lighthouse Board, which appeared at first glance to have little use for such services as the Agency provided. Initially Arrow appears to have given preference in recruitment to men with military rather than police experience. By 1913 the agency was employing some 250 men. Although they normally operated in civilian dress, they also had a uniform which they wore when performing security duties such as escorting payroll deliveries. The emblem of the agency was a single arrow in a circle. This symbol was also used in various forms to denote ranks within the organisation.

Although never publicly acknowledged, Arrow appears to have had as his model, the Pinkerton Agency of the USA, not just as a detective agency, but also for the part that agency played in suppressing labour disputes throughout the latter half of the 19th Century. In a letter to Burton-Chadwick, dated 11th November 1912 he says:

“I have been very much impressed with the work of the Pinkerton men in America. They have done much to reduce the pernicious effect of union agitators and I am convinced that we will soon need their like here in England. The dreadful strikes in South Wales and most recently in Liverpool have made me realise that our police forces will soon be unable to cope. Their size is based on the fundamental philosophy that we are a law abiding country, but things have now got to the state where increasing numbers are not prepared to respect the law. Anarchists, Fenians and others will, I am convinced, make use of this disorder to promote their own evil ends, if indeed they are not already doing so.”
​

By the outbreak of war, Arrow was also in touch, not just with prominent political figures on the right, but also people like Basil Thomson, head of the CID at the Metropolitan Police, Francis Caldwell, Head Constable of Liverpool Police and with many other Chief Constables of provincial forces across Britain. Wherever an industrial dispute broke out, he seems to have made it his practice to contact the Chief Constable for the area, offering advice and services. In Manchester for example, he appears to have offered his services in escorting food vehicles into the City and in transporting strike breakers. There is no evidence that any of these offers were taken up, or even that he expected such to happen, but the contacts he made with these key men and their associates proved critical in the post war years.

(not so much a reboot as a step back a little)

 

[IanBertram]

Revolution-on-Tyne

The Transport Strike of 1911 in Liverpool had essentially failed after the Railwaymen returned to work, persuaded by union officials more fearful of the a challenge to their power and position than they were interested in the improvement of the lot of their members. Once the Railwaymen gave in, the other unions were isolated and the trickle back to work became an ignominious flood. The employers immediately began to seek out and dismiss those men they saw as ringleaders. The Syndicalist movement at the heart of the 1911 strikes had not been entirely defeated however. As the country moved into 1912, strikes continued to take place in larger towns and cities like Hull, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast and in various smaller centres across the country, such as Lincoln, Darlington and Chesterfield.

In almost all these disputes, the workers were as much at odds with their own union officials as with the employers. In some cases the disputes began amongst unorganised labour, spreading from there. The largest of these disputes following Liverpool was probably the national dock strike, which began in Southampton and rapidly spread to ports across the country. Here, Tom Mann and other syndicalist activists had been steadily and quietly working, stressing the insidious growth of 'officialism', the tendency of Union officials to be captured by the interests of the employers, to see themselves in fact as separate and above the men they represented.

It wasn't just men of course. The 1911 Singer dispute in Glasgow had been triggered by a small group of women workers, who rapidly gained the support of their male colleagues. As in Liverpool, that dispute failed but the experience was critical for the women involved who, in addition to their demands for improved pay and conditions, began to agitate also for the vote. The combination of labour activism and the suffrage movement was an uneasy alliance. For many of the Syndicalists, Parliamentary action was a side show. For them the only way for the working classes to secure power to themselves was Direct Action in the form of strikes. Elections meant playing the State's game to the State's rules. For the Syndicalist movement, It wasn't enough to change the rules, the game itself had to be set aside and a new Game begun.

So, the discontent continued to grumble on until in April 1912, the management of the London and North Western railway attempted to dismiss one of their men who had been involved in the 1911 Liverpool dispute, alleging sabotage of railway equipment. Without waiting for Union approval, the men of his branch immediately walked out, calling on other union members to support them. Within the week, the rail strike had spread nationally, and other transport workers were joining them. The cities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham were paralysed without a permit from the local Trades Council allowing the movement of food or other essential supplies. In May 1912, the focus of these disputes shifted to Tyneside as miners, engineering workers in the shipyards, seamen and dockers all joined the national rail strike, the dispute then rapidly spreading to the coalfields of Northumberland and Durham, to the shipyards of Sunderland and to the steel works in Consett. By the beginning of June virtually nothing moved across the entire North East of England without the consent of the strikers.

The scale of the Tyneside strikes was especially worrying to the government, whose chief arbitrator, Sir George Askwith, was reported as saying that “We have 25,000 troops already committed across the country. We only have 80,000 troops available in all and the Territorials cannot be trusted. If the actions of the men on Tyneside continue we will be unable to maintain order.”

It was into this atmosphere that Tom Mann re-emerged to address a huge rally of strikers on the Town Moor in Newcastle on June 12th 1912. In this historic speech he made clear his revolutionary aims.

Last year a hundred thousand people came to the centre of Liverpool. We have as many here today. We gathered then, as we do today, peacefully, to demonstrate our determination to win our terrible battle against the employing classes and the state. What happened last year? Why are we here again today, facing the same battles, the same threats. Why are we again facing the guns and the clubs of the State and the employing classes who own it? Why? Because we faltered. Because we did not act with unanimity. Because we allowed reactionary officials to break apart the solidarity of the working classes of this city and of this country, to exploit the sectional interests of individual unions against the interests even of their own members.

This cannot happen again. Once more we see the military and the police drafted in; once more we see gunboats in the Mersey and nowin the Tyne - we can see nothing except a challenge. A challenge to every worker who values his job. A challenge to every claim each worker makes of his employer. A challenge to every right a worker should expect under common decency. Brothers, we rise to this challenge. And we meet it, head on.

Brothers and sisters, there's a thin line between order and chaos. The forces of the State and the employing classes may yet tread it this afternoon in Newcastle as they have done before; as they did in Tonypandy, in Llanelli, in Derby, in Birmingham, in Lincoln, in Hull, in Manchester, in Glasgow – and in Liverpool. There comes a time however, when the operation of the machinery of the State becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you cannot take part! We have surely reached that condition, comrades and the time has come for you to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus of the State and the employing classes – and you've got to make it stop! You've got to say to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you are free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!

Think of this - if two men can keep 2,000 men employed and hold them at bay in one street in Stepney, how many men would be required to defeat millions of men, spread over the area of Great Britain? Brothers you know the answer – the working classes of this country have the strength, if they act with unanimity, if they stand shoulder to shoulder, they have the strength, to win this fight.

WE CAN WIN! WE WILL WIN!​

As Mann finished speaking a body of police began trying to force their way through the crowd in order to arrest him. As they pushed forward, wielding their truncheons to right and left to clear a path, they met strong resistance. The police were rapidly brought to the ground and beaten with their own truncheons, before being summarily ejected from the crowd to jeers and hoots. With this success, the crowd turned its attentions to the parties of infantry stationed at intervals around the perimeter of the Moor. For the first time territorial units had been entrusted with this role. The men had never seen action and had little training to face the wild crowd now advancing towards them. They began to fall back, all the time being taunted by the more rowdy elements of the crowd. This retreat rapidly turned into a rout as the men abandoned their weapons and took to their heels pursued by strikers.

Behind the fleeing Territorials however was a troop of Scots Greys, regular cavalry who already seen this sort of duty in Liverpool the previous year. Seeing the Territorials fleeing towards them, the troop commander gave the order to move forward at the trot in an attempt to intimidate the crowd. At this point a missile was hurled from the crowd, hitting one of the horses, causing it to rear up. The trooper kept his seat, but in panic drew his pistol and shot dead one of the strikers at the front of the crowd. The Troop commander was unsighted at that moment and assumed his men had come under fire. He gave the command to draw swords and move forward into the crowd.

Under the pressure of thirty horses the crowd at first fell back, but the mass of people was such that they could soon move no further and those at the front were trampled underfoot. At some point the commander was made aware of his error and tried to withdraw his men. Before he could do so, another troop, having heard the shot and seen the subsequent disturbances attempted to disperse the crowd by moving in on the crowd from the far side.

By now it was clear to all parties involved that matters were going awry. Many of the crowd were there in family groups. These began to struggle away from one set of horses only to meet others attempting to escape the press coming from the other side. Meanwhile others, more organised attempted to move towards the disturbance. Inevitably many were injured; men, women and children. The unfortunate troopers of both units were now surrounded by an angry mob, unable to manoeuvre their horses or to regroup. Many were pulled from their mounts and badly beaten. Others kept their seats and struggled free as best they good, but with scant regard for who they rode down in their desperate attempt to escape.

Meanwhile the hapless Territorials had made their way to the nearby Fenham Barracks, to be met by an outraged Commanding Officer. Berating them for their cowardice he threatened to place all of them before courts martial for cowardice and desertion. At this point the frightened and exhausted men abandoned any semblance of military discipline and simply walked out of the barracks to return to their homes.

By nightfall the full toll of the day's events became clear. Two police officers were dead from the beating they had sustained. Seven others were seriously injured either from beatings or from the crush of the crowd as they attempted to escape the horsemen. Seven strikers were dead from blows to the head, sabre wounds or gunshot wounds, while a further 12 people had been trampled to death in the crowd, including two women and a boy of 11 years old.

As the news spread, riots broke out across the North East. Wherever mounted soldiers or police appeared on the streets they were pelted with missiles and forced to retreat. No patrolling on foot was possible over large areas of the region. Over the next week a further seven died, including one policemen and an officer of the Scots Greys who had been mobbed as he attempted to ride out across the Town Moor. Another policeman and a trooper died of injuries received on the first day of the rioting.

In desperation more troops were sent to the region, boosting numbers to over 10,000. At the same time faced with what appeared to be the beginnings of a revolution, legislation was hurriedly pushed through Parliament to provide emergency powers. As originally approved the Emergency Powers Act 1912 was brief. This provided for:

a) the declaration of a State of Emergency by an Order in Council;
b) the power to make regulations, by Order in Council, for securing the essentials of life to the community.

The potential scope of these regulations was vast, granting to “a Secretary of State or other Government department, or any other persons in His Majesty's service or acting on His Majesty's behalf, such powers and duties as His Majesty may deem necessary for the preservation of the peace, for securing and regulating the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, light, and other necessities, for maintaining the means of transit or locomotion, and for any other purposes essential to the public safety and the life of the community, and may make such provisions incidental to the powers aforesaid as may appear to His Majesty to be required for making the exercise of those powers effective; and may, by such regulations, authorise the trial by courts martial and punishment of persons contravening any of the provisions of such regulations"

In other words, almost any aspect of daily life could be controlled by regulation and moreover, breach of those regulations was to be controlled by summary judgement in courts martial. Such a huge increase in the power of the state had never been seen since perhaps the time of Elizabeth.

 

[IanBertram]

Newcastle 1912 - a soldier's tale

SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE in the case of No. 877 Corpl. John Forster Telford
24th. Northumberland Fusiliers.
1st. Witness:-

Lt C.E.F. Mathews, 2nd Dragoons, states:-
On the afternoon of the 12th. inst, I was in charge of a troop of 30 men posted in aid of the civil power on the Newcastle Town Moor. At the same time a section of men from the Northumberland Fusiliers Territorial Force in charge of the accused were posted to my right. At about 3.00 p.m. I observed a party of police officers armed with batons attempting to force their way through the crowd towards the speaker. These officers were very roughly handled by the crowd. At this point the crowd turned towards the Fusiliers and began jeering and hooting. Almost immediately the men began to waver and fall back, the accused among them. As the crowd advanced the Fusiliers turned and ran, some dropping their weapons. I observed the accused among them. He made no attempt to rally or remonstrate with the men in his charge.​

(signature) C.E.F. Mathews, Lt.

(handwritten) The accused declines to cross [examine] this Witness.​

(signature)
K R Balfour Maj. Presdt. F Ellis Capt. G Bracken Capt


Findings of the Court
It is the unanimous finding of the court that the accused is guilty under Section 40 of the Army Act 1881 of acting to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.
Sentence
The accused is sentenced to be reduced to the ranks, to two years hard labour and to be discharged with dishonour from His Majesty's Armed Forces.

 

[IanBertram]

Ulster on the brink - Part 1

Ulster on the Brink.

An edited text of a paper presented to the 15th Conference on 20th Century European History, New York, June 23rd 2012.

An understanding of the Irish Emergency is essential for any study of the War of 1914-1920. The events of the Emergency were hugely significant in their impact on Britain's capacity to respond to German aggression at the beginning of the War and later efforts to contain Communist revolutionary movements across Europe between 1917 and 1923.

First Rumblings
The roots of the emergency lie of course in Britain's troubled, centuries old, relationship with Ireland, but the direct cause was Unionist fears of a Dublin government in the event of Home Rule. These fears often seemed paranoid to English politicians, not versed in the unique Irish capacity to hold a grudge for centuries. From time to time statements emerged from the Unionist camp that, given the many protestations of loyalty to the Crown, seemed so bizarre as to make any attempt at rational debate a futile exercise. In January 1911 for example, Captain James Craig, the main organiser of Unionist resistance wrote to a friend:

Germany and the German Emperor would be preferred to the rule of John Redmond, Patrick Ford and the Molly Maguires.​

He wasn't alone. On 23rd September Carson spoke at a vast rally of Unionists at Craigavon (Craig's house), attended by some 50,000.

We are faced with perhaps the most nefarious conspiracy that has ever been hatched against a free people, but make no mistake – we will fight., even though those we fight are going to play with loaded dice. Our demand is a very simple one. We ask for no privileges, but we are determined that no one shall have privileges over us. We ask for no special rights, but we claim the same rights from the same Government as every other part of the United Kingdom. We ask for nothing more; we will take nothing less. It is our inalienable right as citizens of the British Empire, and heaven help the men who try to take it from us. Whatever happens we must be prepared...and time is precious in these things – the morning Home Rule is passed, ourselves to become responsible for the government of the Protestant Province of Ulster. ​

But - if we are to be put from the Union, and left to the mercies of Mr Redmond and his crew, I would infinitely prefer to change my allegiance right over to Germany and the German Emperor, or to anyone else who has a proper and stable government.​

Statements like this were of course seditious and placed the Asquith government in some difficulty. It was clear from the rapturous response that Carson was gaining huge support and he would not be easily silenced. Probably as much from a desire that what they wished for be true as anything else, the Liberals convinced themselves that Carson was bluffing and did nothing. “We must not attach too much importance to the frothings of Sir Edward Carson” said Churchill. The Republicans were equally dismissive with Jerry MacVeagh, the secretary of the Irish Party, saying “Sir Edward will not discard his wig and gown for a spiked helmet and a khaki suit.”

And so matters rested in an uneasy standoff until the new year, with an announcement that Winston Churchill, by then First Lord of the Admiralty, would speak in Belfast on Home Rule, alongside Messrs Redmond and Dillon from the Nationalist Party. This meeting was moreover billed to take place, not in some neutral venue, but at the Ulster Hall, the symbolic heart of Unionism in the North. Unsurprisingly the Ulster Unionist Council, outraged at what they described as 'a deliberate challenge thrown down by Mr Churchill', declared their intention of preventing the meeting taking place at all. Implicit in this response was the message that if he insisted he should be prepared to take the consequences.

Having no doubt achieved what he intended, Churchill agreed to move his speech to another venue, although this proved hard to find. The Opera House remained unavailable, despite rumours of a knighthood for the manager, and eventually the Government was reduced to shipping in a marquee from Scotland and erecting it on the Celtic Football Ground. Fearful of unrest, Dublin Castle also moved five battalions of infantry, two companies of cavalry and many extra police into the Belfast area.

On 8th Feb 1912, a day later than originally planned, Churchill arrived at Larne to be met by a huge crowd, defiantly singing the National Anthem. At lunch in the Grand Central Hotel in Belfast another large – and loud – congregation of Orangemen gathered outside. Their mood was aggressive and it was probably only the presence of Carson and Lord Londonderry standing on the balcony of the Ulster Club opposite that prevented an outright attack on Churchill's car as he left for the football ground. Even so his car was several times surrounded by the crowd and only extricated with some difficulty by escorting police. Indeed on one occasion it seemed likely that it would be overturned, an event later described by one Unionist as being a consequence of the crowd's 'involuntary swaying', although other reports suggested that the presence of Mrs Churchill alongside him was more of a factor with cries of 'Mind the wumman' as the crowds pressed in on the vehicle.

The speech, to a carefully controlled audience, was something of an anti-climax. A huge rainstorm had kept many away. The marquee was partially flooded and only about two thirds full. The only interruptions came from suffragists, one calling out in a broad Belfast accent to demand suffrage for women, while another shouted out “Women are being tortured.” Churchill, perhaps conscious that he was in enough trouble, ignored the interruptions and the women were swiftly removed.

It was after the speech however that trouble really began. Perhaps because of their close shave on the journey out, Mrs Churchill was sent, by circuitous and dingy back streets to the station and thence to Larne while Churchill, never one to duck a fight, returned to his hotel by the same route as before. Here despite the rain the crowd of Orange protesters had grown and this time in the absence of Mrs Churchill they proved less willing to refrain from mobbing the car, rocking it back and fore until it overturned. Having vented their feelings and no doubt prompted by the appearance of a troop of cavalry the crowd then dispersed singing ribald anti-Catholic songs as they went.

Churchill and his companions were eventually recovered from the upturned vehicle. All had only minor injuries apart from Churchill who suffered a broken leg and serious damage to his dignity. The injury was to be leave him with a serious limp and beset by pain for rest of his life. It also left him an implacable enemy of Carson and Unionism.

For King and Country?
Partially as a riposte to Churchill's speech earlier in the month and partially as a demonstration of strength, the Unionists held another huge rally on 24 February at the Agricultural Society show grounds on the edge of Belfast. Around 60,000 Unionists turned out despite bitter cold and driving rain to hear Bonar Law and Carson speak. In an uncompromising speech, delivered in front of a Union Jack some 50 feet across, Bonar Law assured those present that the Conservative Party would support Ulstermen if they resisted Home Rule by force.

Your cause is not that of Ulster alone. Your cause is the Empire's. I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go, in which I would not be prepared to support them, in which my Party would not support them and in which, in my belief, they would not be supported by the vast majority of the British People.​

In his turn Carson returned to his constant theme of Ulster's willingness to fight.

I recognise my responsibility; Heaven knows I am always thinking about it. From morn till night, I think of the grave tragedies that may lie before us. It doesn’t make me shrink one iota as regards myself; no man in my position can help but think of others who have to fight out this battle. I contemplate what may happen, it is natural to feel – even the bravest heart – I shall not say with fear, but with a sense of responsibility that is almost appalling. But I know this, I am dealing in all parts with brave men who have made up their minds and if we have to go into a fight – which God forbid – we will do so knowing that for the last thirty years, for no fault on our part which can alleged against us, we have been a threatened and an outraged people and we will also be conscious in our minds that every warning which it was possible to give the government from the very first day on which this wicked conspiracy was put forward against us – every opportunity was taken warning them that under no circumstances would we submit to be thrust out of the government under which we were born by the most unscrupulous government that I have ever known or read of. ​

Ulstermen will not suffer to be handed over to a Catholic government in Dublin. We will not suffer to see our loyalty dismissed, set aside and denigrated. Ulster will resist, by force of arms if needed - Ulster will fight.​

Carson did not elaborate further how that fight would be organised but that became clear the next day with two announcements by the Ulster Unionist Council. The first was the creation of a Volunteer Army of 100,000 men willing to be trained in the use of arms and ready to use those arms in the defence of Ulster if need be. The second was the launch of a Covenant to be signed by every adult Ulsterman, declaring themselves ready to stand for Ulster and the Union.

BEING CONVINCED in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as of the whole of Ireland, subversive of our civil and religious freedom, destructive of our citizenship, and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, men of Ulster, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., humbly relying on the God whom our fathers in days of stress and trial confidently trusted, do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant, to stand by one another in defending, for ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. And in the event of such a Parliament being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority and to resist its imposition. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names.​

And further, we individually declare that we have not already signed this Covenant.​

The choice of words 'men of Ulster' was deliberate. Carson and the others saw the Covenant as a prerequisite for the creation of an armed force in which women were to have no part. A 'Declaration' to be signed by the women of Ulster was launched in parallel which made clear their subservient role.

WE, whose names are underwritten, women of Ulster, and loyal subjects of our gracious King, being firmly persuaded that Home Rule would be disastrous to our Country, desire to associate ourselves with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament, whereby it is proposed to drive Ulster out of her cherished place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom, and to place her under the domination and control of a Parliament in Ireland.​

Praying that from this calamity God will save Ireland, we hereto subscribe our names. ​

The campaign began in the West at Enniskillen, moving daily closer to Belfast and its climax. At the first rally, 50,000 Orange men marched past the platform in military order. The same pattern continued as the campaign developed; Orangemen paraded in force and the same resolution was passed by acclamation - “We won't have Home Rule”, soon to be abbreviated to “We won't have it” and chanted at every opportunity. The culmination of the campaign came in May in a ceremony at the Ulster Hall in Belfast where Craig handed to Carson a faded banner that had been carried, it was claimed, at the Battle of the Boyne. Unfurling it before the crowd, Carson declaimed “May this flag for ever fly over a free Ulster.”

The next day was a Sunday, with services all over the Province at which the signing of the Covenant was presented as a religious obligation as much as a political one. The Protestant churches gave it their full support, with Charles D'Arcy, Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore announcing from the pulpit "We hold that no power, not even the British Parliament, has the right to deprive us of our heritage of British citizenship." After the services had ended Carson and other Unionist leaders walked the short distance from the Ulster Hall to Belfast City Hall, preceded by the Boyne Standard presented to him the previous evening and with a guard of men wearing bowler hats and carrying sticks. At the City Hall entrance – no difficulties were offered for this use – Carson was welcomed by the Lord Mayor and Corporation in their Robes, the Poor Law Guardians, the Harbour Commissioners and even the Water Board. Inside, the Covenant was set on a circular table draped with the Union Flag. Carson was the first to sign, followed by Lord Londonderry and then by representatives from the Protestant Churches.

Outside City Hall, under the command of Major Frederick Crawford, another Ulster activist of long standing, Carson's guard had been supplemented by others drawn from Unionist Clubs and Orange Lodges across the Province, and now made a force of some 2,500 men. These marshals admitted the general public to sign in batches of four or five hundred at a time until 11pm that night. Similar enthusiastic scenes were to be found across the Province. Meanwhile, at the Ulster Hall women signed the Declaration of Support, although not without some disruption from suffragists. The treatment given to these women on the day was brutal and something that would rebound on the Unionist movement over the next few years. In public buildings, church halls and Market Squares across the Province, similar signing ceremonies were taking place. By the end of the day, it was claimed by Carson that some 20,000 people had signed the Covenant and 12,000 women the Declaration. Eventually some 300,000 men signed the Covenant and 240,000 women, the Declaration.

In June a British Covenant was announced at a massive rally in London's Hyde Park with probably 300,000 people assembling to hear Lord Milner and Carson speak.

BEING CONVINCED in our consciences that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of the whole of this United Kingdom and perilous to the unity of the Empire, we, whose names are underwritten, loyal subjects of His Gracious Majesty King George V., do hereby pledge ourselves in solemn Covenant before God, to stand by our fellow countrymen in Ulster in defending, by all means which may be found necessary, their cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, and in taking or supporting any action that may be effective to prevent the Home Rule Bill being put into operation, and more particularly to prevent the armed forces of the Crown being used to deprive the people of Ulster of their rights as citizens of the United Kingdom. And in the event of such a Bill being forced upon us, we further solemnly and mutually pledge ourselves to refuse to recognise its authority and to resist its imposition. In sure confidence that God will defend the right, we hereto subscribe our names.​

And further, we individually declare that we have not already signed this Covenant. ​

​

The signature campaign for this was largely organised through the Primrose League and the Union Defence League. By the end of the summer, two million signatures were obtained. Prominent signatories included Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Seymour, Rudyard Kipling, and Sir William Ramsay FRS together with many servicing officers of the Army and Navy.

Despite the huge level of support, many condemned the campaign. The Daily Herald described the signatories as being:

... all members of that treasonous and seditious conspiracy known as the 'British Covenant' in support of armed revolution in Ulster.​

Tom Mann, in a speech in Birmingham, was caustic in comparing his treatment for publishing a leaflet calling on troops not to shoot striking workers, while “Knights and Peers of the Realm create private armies” without fear of penalty. Labour MPs in the House of Commons were equally acerbic denouncing Carson and Bonar Law alike as unpatriotic, treasonous and seditious. On several occasions the session had to be suspended by the Speaker with near brawls between members.

Another report in the Daily Herald captured something of the character of the debate.

In great anger at the penalties inflicted on the Syndicalists, Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons, endeavoured to persuade the Government to take action against the authorities in Ulster who are responsible for the alleged drilling of Ulstermen to resist Home Rule when it comes. Mr. Jerry MacVeagh, the wag who is secretary of the Irish Parliamentary party, referred to a statement of Lord Dunleath that it was not military drill, but squad drill, adding for himself that " the only object was to enable large bodies of Orangemen to turn round when they received a word of; command from their leaders.'' (Laughter.) Mr. Asquith said the Government was fully informed as to what was " going on, " the immediate object being, as I understand, to prepare for a party demonstration in a few weeks time," (Laughter.) If they suspected any seditious purpose they would take action, since no authority could sanction drilling for an illegal purpose. Mr. Lansbury asked if the law would not be called in should the Miners' Federation commence to teach its men drill. Mr. .Asquith: That is a hypothetical question, and I will answer it when it arises. Mr. Lansbury finished up by presenting Mr, Asquith with a leaflet circulated in Ulster informing the people that officers of the army had told their friends they would order their men not to fire on the people of Ulster if they rebelled against Home Rule. ​

Nationalist feeling elsewhere in the UK was aroused too. In Scotland, 'The Thistle' said:

Scotland has had to fight for years to get her most urgent needs attended to, the demands of her members of Parliament being largely ignored, whether the party in power be Liberal or Conservative. How then arises this difference of treatment? The answer is a sad one, but it is plain and undeniable. The brutal English majority in Parliament turns all but a deaf ear to the manifold requirements of Scotland, because the Scottish people are peaceful and law-abiding—but it truckles to the remonstrances and complaints—civil and religious—of the Irish people, because they resort to violent means if their demands are refused.​

Other newspapers played down the Unionist call to arms in favour of attacks on the Home Rule plans. A Times editorial argued that “to shut [the Unionists] out of their present Constitutional position and to subject them to the Nationalists would be oppression of the grossest and most cruel kind” going on to say of the campaign – in Ulster and in the rest of the United Kingdom – that “it is by its gravity, its moderation, and its unflinching firmness that it will arrest the attention and secure the support of the English and the Scottish people.”

Ulster Mobilises
Despite the protestations of Loyalty to the Crown, the launch of the Covenant and the associated mobilisation of the UVF was nothing less than a declaration of willingness to use armed force against His Majesty's Government. Bonar Law repeated his pledge of Conservative Party support for the Unionist cause in numerous speeches both at public meetings and in the Commons. In a particularly heated exchange with Asquith he said:

Do you plan to hurl the full majesty and power of the law, supported on the bayonets of the British Army, against a million Ulstermen marching under the Union Flag and singing 'God Save The King'? Would the Army hold? Would the British people — would the Crown — stand for such a slaughter?​

Across Ulster men were signing up in their hundreds for the new Ulster Volunteer Force and enthusiastic bands of men could everywhere be seen drilling, usually with crude wooden staves in place of rifles, although in a few cases armed with shotguns and the occasional rifle.

By the end of April 1912 it was clear to the Nationalists, if not the Government in London, that Unionists were becoming increasingly militarised. Weapons were appearing at parades and training was beginning to include firing exercises. In June the UUC went a step further, approving the creation of a Provisional Government for Ulster if Home Rule became law and setting up a Military Council to oversee the development and arming of the UVF. Lord Roberts of Kandahar was appointed to the command of the UVF. Rumours were already widespread of large scale purchases of arms by agents acting for the UUC and the creation of the Military Council appeared to confirm this. The UUC also launched a fund (underwritten by several wealthy Belfast businessmen) to create an indemnity guarantee for British Officers who resigned their commission or were dismissed for refusing to use force again Loyalists.

The Republicans responded in kind – twice. In May 1912 the creation of an Irish Volunteer Army was announced. Although not admitted in public, it was understood on all sides that the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood were prime movers. The IRB were traditional Republican and not sympathetic to the concerns of workers or women. Everything was to be subordinated to the task of securing Irish Independence. Faced with this, supporters of Larkin and Connolly began recruiting volunteers for a proposed Irish Citizen Army in July.

Over the next few months all parties focused on building positions of strength. The UVF by the end of June had reached 35,000 members across most of Ulster. From a slow start the IVA had reached only about 8,000 concentrated mostly in Dublin with some small groups in rural areas across the south. By the end of July the figures stood at UVF 40,000, IVA, 20,000 and ICA 1,500. The newly created ICA was concentrated in Dublin with smaller groups in Limerick, Waterford and Cork and Belfast.

As membership in these militias grew so did intercommunal tensions. On 29th June matters came to a head, when a Protestant Sunday School outing was attacked by a group of Republicans from the Ancient Order of Hibernians who took exception to the union jacks being waved in the procession. Seeing the attack under way, other locals joined in the affray. More by luck than anything else, the two groups were eventually separated by the few available local police officers without any serious physical injuries, who then managed to get the Protestant group onto their train back to Belfast. By Monday, the story of the attack had spread across Orange Belfast, no doubt multiplied in the telling, and the inevitable reprisals began. Roman Catholic workers in the ship yards were attacked and driven from the yards and more attacks took place on their homes. Retaliations by Republicans were swift. Throughout July and August tit for tat attacks continued with both Catholic and Protestant families attacked at work, on the streets and in their homes.

By now the Government, while publicly dismissive, was beginning to be concerned. They were already faced by major disruption from labour disputes, with 10,000 troops committed to the North East of England and at least 40,000 troops deployed elsewhere to support hard pressed police. The prospect now of violence in Ulster was not appealing, especially given that Republicans were also mobilising against the perceived threat of an anti-Catholic and anti-Republican militia. To make matters worse, suffragist violence was also on the increase with intermittent arson attacks on Unionist properties and the property of prominent Unionists in Ulster and more generally in London and elsewhere.

The Committee Stage of Home Rule Bill was also considered in June. A late amendment to exclude Antrim, Armagh, Down and Londonderry was reluctantly accepted by the Unionists but after three days of debate was defeated by 69 votes, failing to secure Asquith's support. This was nevertheless a tactical victory for the Unionists since at least the Government had been forced to admit of the possibility of a separate Ulster. Speaking at a meeting in London, Carson admitted that the result was not unexpected. He went on to say however:

I think the time has come for us to take a step forward in our campaign and that is what I shall recommend be done.​

Not for the first time Carson was ambiguous about the precise meaning of his statements. Publicly there was a large military style parade in Belfast at the beginning of September, where, for the first time armed members of the UVF appeared in public, although without any overt recognition of the fact from Carson or other members of the UUC. Similar parades took place over the next few weeks across the Province. The UUC also announced that a commission had been established to prepare a constitution for any Provisional Government that might need to be established with the aim of a report before the end of 1912.

[Part 2 - Ulster arms itself]

 

[IanBertram]

Ulster on the Brink Part 2

Ulster arms itself
Behind the scenes the Military Council was organising and becoming more professional. Roberts had established his HQ in the Old Belfast Town Hall back in July and rapidly appointed his staff. Craig was identified as Political Officer, but in practice his duties also included securing enough arms for the rapidly growing UVF to allow proper training and equipping. To this end he had suggested to Roberts the appointment as Director of Ordnance of Major Frederick Crawford. Crawford had become convinced that Ulster would have to fight for its existence during the Home Rule debates of the 1880s and 90s at which time he had first begun trying to import arms. In 1906 he had advertised in various French, Belgian, German and Austrian newspapers to buy 10,000 rifles and 2m rounds of ammunition. In 1911, with the use of aliases and disguises, he had with some local support (including from police officers who looked the other way) made some small scale purchases in Glasgow and later acquired five hundred rifles and 3m rounds in Manchester. Attempts to import these had failed however and they had been seized by customs officials on the docks in Liverpool. He had been unsuccessful on that occasion but in the process had gained a great deal of knowledge of the arms market to supplement his practical experience during the Boer War under Roberts.

Crawford immediately set to work. His past experience told him that although it was technically not illegal to buy arms, there were technical restrictions on their movement and import and he would need to operate in some secrecy, especially since he was now able to consider the purchase and import of much larger quantities and of much improved quality. To support him, he recruited two licensed Belfast gunsmiths, Robert Adgey and William Hunter who had themselves also been attempting to import weapons. Over the previous two years the pair of them had managed to import some 500 rifles and 3m rounds of ammunition.

In February 1912, Adgey had managed to buy 50,000 rifles, 100 Maxim machine guns, 1500 Webley pistols and 2 batteries of field artillery from a dealer in Birmingham. These were still sitting in the suppliers warehouses waiting to be collected. Crawford now sent Adgey and Hunter to England where, using respectable businesses as a fronts, they set up a network of depots in Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, London, West Hartlepool, Bedford, Rugby and Darlington. The weapons already acquired were moved from the warehouse into these depots, where they were repackaged under a range of guises and quickly moved on to another depot. Within a few weeks the entire consignment had been dispersed and hidden. The next steps were to arrange shipment to Ireland and dispersal to the various UVF units. Crawford left this to Craig with Adgey and Hunter, while he travelled to Germany with the aim of buying more weaponry.

He had already made contact with Bruno Spiro, an arms dealer in Hamburg, who had been very helpful and more to the point discreet. In 1911 an attempt to buy 20,000 Italian rifles was frustrated when the company with whom they were negotiating informed the British government. Spiro had stepped in and recovered the weapons and then stored them safely without disclosing the fact that their eventual destination was still Ulster. Crawford and Spiro had since then built up a firm friendship and trusted each other beyond the limits of their commercial dealings. In August of 1912 Crawford met Spiro and negotiated the purchase of 35,000 modern rifles and 4m rounds of ammunition for £83,000. Funding for this was now in place, raised in part from the same businessmen who had underwritten the Indemnity Fund for British officers, but also from Orange groups in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. An Australian millionaire of Ulster origins, Sir Samuel McCaughey contributed £25,000 in one donation while several others exceeded £10,000.

The purchase made and payment arranged, it was now time to organise shipment to Ireland. Crawford decided, after consultation with Craig and with Carson to go for a single big shipment. “I'll see you through this business, if I should have to go to prison for it” said Carson as he endorsed the plans. It was clear that attempting to use English or Scottish ports would only result in the loss of most of the weapons, since Customs officers were becoming increasingly well informed about attempts to move arms. The weapons purchased in Birmingham were still sitting in various locations around the coast. The rifles however were of various obsolete designs without much in the way of ammunition and Crawford now developed an elaborate plan to use these as decoys while the main shipment was being brought in.

Cruise of the Berthe
In Bergen, Crawford found a ship, the S.S. Berthe. The Antrim Iron Ore and Coal Steamship Company released a ship's master and his engineer and they now travelled to Hamburg to join Crawford and from there went to Bergen to inspect the Berthe. She proving suitable, the purchase went ahead and the ship's crew were recruited for the venture under their original captain. Crawford now returned to Hamburg while the Berthe set sail under a Norwegian flag for a rendezvous point in Danish waters. He had made arrangements with Spiro for each rifle to be packed with 200 rounds of ammunition and these then wrapped in bundles of five. He expected that when the guns were landed they would need to be offloaded and dispersed very quickly. The repackaging had cost him another £2000 but would prove well worth the effort. Spiro also added the 20,000 Italian Vetterli rifles from the previous purchase to the shipments being prepared. If all went well, Crawford would be landing some 55,000 rifles of which 35,000 had only just been withdrawn from use in the Austrian Army.

The packages were loaded onto a barge and towed through the Kiel Canal to the rendezvous point in shallow waters off the Danish coast near the port of Langeland. There in early October they were trans-shipped to the Berthe. The transfer of cargoes however caught the attention of Danish port officials who boarded the ship and demanded to see the manifest. Suspicious, they took away the ships papers, promising to return them the next morning at 8.00. Overnight the weather worsened with heavy seas and a thick fog. It became obvious that the launch carrying the Port Officer would not be able to come out. Crawford waited until the appointed hour so that he could if need be claim the moral ground later, and then gave the order to set sail, anxious to get out of Danish waters as soon as possible.

Back in the UK, Crawford's team began an elaborate shell game, moving consignments between ports along the West Coast while two small freighters, the SS Cabinet Minister and the SS Larne Queen also wandered up and down the coast as if waiting for instructions. Meanwhile, the Berthe with her funnel now painted black instead of its previous bright yellow and with a new name, Doreen painted on canvas sheets, quietly headed north as if for Bergen. The intention was that the movements of the two decoy vessels along the coast and the moving of various consignments, some fake, on shore would be conspicuous enough to attract the attention of the authorities who would hopefully be distracted while the Berthe slipped north to a planned rendezvous in the remote Loch Laxford in the far north west of Scotland. Unfortunately crossing from the Swedish coast towards England they hit some heavy weather and were forced to put into the coal port of Blyth in Northumberland, this time under a third name of Fanny. Without papers this was a risky decision, but coming in at night they avoided problems. Fortunately by dawn the next morning the weather cleared and they managed to slip away without further difficulties to continue their journey north but not before sending a coded cable describing their progress.

Meanwhile, in Barrow, the Cabinet Minister had been boarded by port authorities but unable to find anything they were eventually released. Seizing the opportunity they took on 5,000 rifles and the component parts of two field guns that had somehow escaped detection on the quayside plus some coal and set off for Belfast. A further ship, the Clydevalley was at the time in Greenock awaiting instructions. On receiving the cable from Berthe she was sent north to meet them in Loch Laxford. The rest of Berthe's journey passed without incident. They were pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the busy coastal traffic. At the end of October they edged their way into Loch Laxford to see the Clydevalley waiting. Against all the odds the cruise of the Berthe had succeeded, although the difficult task of actually landing the weapons in Ulster was still ahead.

[Part 3 to follow soon]

 

[IanBertram]

Its not all plain sailing

Liverpool, Oct 15th, 2.00am
Dan Reagan peered through a slit in the door of the canalside warehouse. Behind him half a dozen men waited silently, each armed with clubs or large knives. Reagan himself had a pistol tucked into his belt.

“They're here” he snapped.

Without waiting for instruction the men behind him melted into the darkness. Reagan pulled out his pistol and stepped behind the a large crate to the side.

From outside came the muffled noise of men's voices, then the noise of lorries bumping over an uneven surface. The padlock on the doors was opened, keys clanking, the doors slid back and the two waiting trucks pulled in. As the door closed again, the warehouse was suddenly flooded with light from several electric lanterns held by Reagan's men.

The leader of those who had just arrived cursed then went for his pocket. “I wouldn't if I were you” said Reagan, stepping from behind his crate, pistol steadily pointed at the other man. He gestured with the pistol - “Now if you gentlemen would get down from the lorries and move to the side? ”

Suddenly the doors opened again, Reagan didn't move. Three more of his men came in, each carrying pistols. They covered the men climbing down from the lorry cabs then the whole group as the others moved in with ropes and chains. “It will be the better for all of us if you cooperate nicely” said Reagan. The others looked at each other then their bodies slumped as they accepted the inevitable. They were rapidly tied up and gagged, then deposited without ceremony at the back of the warehouse.

Reagan jumped up onto the back of one of the lorries, lifting the cover. Several crates prominently labelled 'Machine Parts' could be seen. “This is it boys” he called out exultantly “a good haul for the cause – and at the expense of these Orange bastards to boot”.

He jumped down as two of the others men climbed into the cabs and reversed the lorries out, followed by the rest of the group before they all disappeared into the darkness.

 

[IanBertram]

The Cabinet considers events

(This Document is the Property of His Britannic majesty's Government)​

SECRET​

MINUTES of a Meeting held at 10 Downing Street, SW,​

on Wednesday June 26, 1912. at 11-30 a.m.

​

Present

​

The Prime Minister (in the Chair)
The Rt Hon. R. McKenna, M.P. Home Secretary
The Rt Hon, Sir Edward Grey, Bt, M.P. Foreign Secretary
The Rt Hon. J. E. B. Seely, D.S.O., M.P. Secretary of State for War,
The Rt Hon. T. McKinnon Wood, M.P. Secretary for Scotland,
The Rt Hon. A. Birrell, K.C. M.P. Chief Secretary for Ireland
The Rt Hon. S. Buxton, M.P. President of the Board of Trade

Also in attendance

​

Field Marshal Sir J. French, KCB, KCMG, GCVO, Chief of the Imperial General Staff
Sir E. Henry, KCB, GCVO, KPM, Commisioner of Police of the Metropolis
F. Caldwell Esq., Head Constable, Liverpool City Police
H. P. P. Lane Esq., Chief Constable, Lancashire
Lt Col H. M. A. Warde, Chief Constable, Kent
...
3. The Current Disturbances

The Home Secretary said that the situation across the North and in South Wales is rapidly deteriorating. Police Officers are becoming exhausted by the demands placed upon on them and many have been injured. There is every indication that the location and timing of outbreaks of violence have been designed to maximise the pressures placed on police forces and their ability to respond in a timely and effective manner. The position in North East England was particularly grave, especially on Tyneside and in the Northumberland mining areas and on Teesside amongst steel workers, where rioting had taken place each day for the past four days.

He said that with the approval of the Prime Minister he had asked the Commissioner and his colleagues to attend to give evidence on the capacity of the police service to meet the pressures now placed upon them by the present disorders in the coalfields. He had intended that one of the Chief Constables from the North East would be in attendance today, but the grave situation they faced prevented their attendance. They were however in daily communication with his office.

The Commissioner said that he was speaking for all the Chief Constables here present and had been in communication with many others on the issue. They were all of the opinion that while there was no orchestrated conspiracy, many normally disparate groups were finding ways to come together to make the most of the present unrest. In London and Liverpool there was strong evidence of involvement by Irish nationalists, in London by Indian nationalists. In both these cases there is a suggestion of German support. Communist agitators were at work in all the industrial areas of the country, prominent among whom was Tom Mann. Some Republicans, such as James Connolly were known to be sympathetic to the ideas espoused by Mann and others, and the possible coming together of Irish and Communist agitation was not something to be desired. The activities of Orangemen in Ireland were also it seems receiving some support from German quarters, presumably under the principle of general mischief making. Lt Col. Warde added that although the majority of the disturbances had been in the main cities and industrial areas of the North of England, there had also been some disturbances in the Kent Coalfields.

The Prime Minister asked the Home Secretary if in his opinion the police in the North East of England could continue to cope with current levels of violent behaviour. The Home Secretary replied that that stage had not yet been reached but matters were coming close. In view of the events in Newcastle in June, troops already despatched to the area were being used so far as possible to escort food convoys and guard key establishment such as railway yards and the like. Even in these limited roles they regularly come under attack. On three occasions these attacks have involved the use of firearms.

The CIGS said that while he could provide a small number of additional troops for use in the North East, this would mean moving them from elsewhere which was likely to provide an opening for further disruption in those locations. He did not have enough men to deploy on routine police patrols and did not consider it desirable to do so. Commitment of extra men would in any case mean withdrawal from duties in the colonies and would take some time to arrange. He did not believe it advisable to withdraw men from duties in Ireland.

The Prime Minister asked the Home Secretary if an increase in the number of Special Constables might help to release police from more routine duties. The Home Secretary replied that the numbers of Special Constables had been doubled since 1910 and they were already fully committed. It was not possible to despatch Special Constables from one area of the country to another and so there was also the possibility of some sympathies existing between the Special Constables and local people, much as had already been seen with some units of the Territorial Forces. He was of the opinion that the problems experienced with the Territorials in Newcastle were as much to do with such local sympathies as with indiscipline or cowardice.

The Prime Minister asked the Foreign Secretary what calls upon the Army and Navy might be foreseeable given Army mobilisations in Germany and elsewhere. The Foreign Secretary replied that there seemed a high risk of war breaking out somewhere in Europe and Britain being drawn in could not be ruled out. It was important therefore to keep the Army as ready for action as was possible. The Army Manoeuvres planned for September were a part of maintaining that state of readiness.

The Prime Minister asked the Commissioner and the Chief Constables for their views on how the Police might be better able to meet the calls on them in times of civil disorder. Lt Col Warde suggested that consideration be given to the creation of a National Police Force, distinct from present local constabularies, specially trained to deal with major disturbances to the peace. Constitutionally the use of the Army in such circumstances was always difficult, and the chain of command was not always as clear as it might be. A national force, organised on military lines, with military standards of discipline, but under civilian direction might offer a way through these difficulties. The most effective police actions in such disturbances often involved the use of horses, so such a force might well benefit from being mounted. As with the Army they should also be armed.

The Commissioner was concerned that such a force might be seen as converting the Police into units of the Army rather than vice versa, but he could nevertheless see merit in the idea. Mr Caldwell asked who would command such a force if they were called in to police a disturbance such as those in Liverpool last year or those in Newcastle last month. Would the responsibility for their disposition be handed to the Special Force Commander or would it remain with the local Constabulary? If the former it might well have the effect raised by the Commissioner. If such a force was raised he was of the opinion that they should be seen as an Auxiliary Force and placed under local command. Mr Lane asked if such a Force would have investigatory powers since again this might well duplicate efforts in local forces.

The Prime Minister said that there appeared only to be three choices available. First an increase in the overall numbers of the police, but it could not be guaranteed that any additional numbers would be in the right location in the event of any disturbances. Second some changes might be made to the way in which the Army was called in, probably by recourse to the Emergency Powers Act just signed by His Majesty. Third was the creation of a National Police Auxiliary to be organised along the lines suggested by Lt Col Warde. He asked the Home Secretary to prepare a paper setting out pro and con of each of these, for consideration in seven days time.

 

[IanBertram]

Ulster on the Brink Part 3 - landing the guns

It begins
After the Berthe made successful rendezvous with the Clydevalley in Loch Laxford, the most difficult task still remained – getting the weapons into Ulster and distributed to the various units of the UVF. Here again, the combination of Crawford and Craig proved highly effective, especially in combination with Lord Roberts Chief of Staff, Lt Col. Sir George Richardson. Roberts although willing to throw his huge prestige behind the Ulster cause was not well enough to be much more than a figurehead. Richardson however proved well up to the task and within the limits of the resources available had brought the UVF to a high state of efficiency. In one area he was in fact well ahead of most thinking, even in full time professional armies, in the creation of a highly organised Motor Corps. This unit was to prove decisive in the successful landing and distribution of the weapons.

Security was tight. Very few people knew that the Clydevalley had successfully taken on board the weapons. Most of those believed that the landing was to be made in Belfast. However, late on the evening of September 4th the Berthe sailed openly into Belfast Lough, sending dummy signals by lantern to the shore. At the same time Clydevalley put into the Harbour at Larne while the Larne Queen, which had had by now picked up another consignment of the Birmingham arms, put into Bangor, and the Cabinet Minister, which had been forced to return to Barrow with engine problems, into Donaghadee about six miles from Bangor.

On September 1st all units of the UVF had been told to report to their normal drill location without arms on the evening of 4th September and to be prepared to stay there all night. The Belfast Division were to stand by for further instructions. Despatch riders were sent to watch the police and military barracks and report all movements. Others were to go to various locations on the main roads from Belfast to Larne and Bangor to watch for movement of police or army. Members of the Motor Corps were instructed to report to Larne at 11.00 pm on 4th September, with an extra driver, fuel and warned not to drive at speed or draw any attention to themselves by the blowing of horns etc. On arrival they were to obey the instructions of Marshals. Some two dozen members of the Corps were given similar instructions to report to Bangor and Donaghadee.

The landings
At 8.30 on the 4th, 500 men of the East Belfast Regiment of the UVF arrived on the Quayside in Belfast, soon followed by a large force of vehicles of all sorts including horse drawn carts, coal wagons and motor lorries where they were all marshalled into a waiting area. By 9.00 pm 1,000 men of the North Belfast Regiment marched to the Midland Railway station where they proceeded to place a guard around the station and to occupy the departure platform (for Larne) with a large force. The aim was not to despatch these men to Larne, but to frustrate any attempt by the army or police to do so. At the same time, the remaining Belfast regiments moved into their sectors across the city where they occupied key locations and carried out patrols. These men were under orders to avoid Nationalist areas and to refrain from creating any disturbances. By 9.30, the UVF HQ in Belfast Old Town Hall was under guard by some 200 specially picked men.

Across Ulster the rest of the UVF stayed in their drill halls, although sending out frequent partols along main roads, again with instructions to avoid Nationalist areas, but otherwise to be as obvious as possible.

At about 11.00 pm, the Berthe finally docked in Belfast. Customs officials immediately boarded demanding to inspect the ships papers and the cargo. The ship's Captain however offered only vague and obstructive responses, claiming to have mislaid his keys and saying he could not open the ship's hatches without instructions from the owners. He continued to play this game throughout the night to the increasing frustration of the police and customs officers attempting to search the ship. At one point the senior customs officer ordered the hatch covers to be removed only for the captain to immediately have them replaced.

While this cat and mouse game was going on in Belfast, the other ships were getting ready to unload their cargoes. At 10.30 the Clydevalley tied up in Larne, followed soon afterwards by the Larne Queen into Bangor and the Cabinet Minister into Donaghadee. By 11.15 all three ships were busily off loading into waiting motor vehicles which once they had received as many bundles as they could carry drove off into the darkness to deliver them to several secret locations just outside Larne and Bangor before returning for another load. By 1.00 am the Larne Queen and Cabinet Minister had both discharged their entire cargoes and were loading coal ready to put to sea. By 2.30 am the Clydevally was also clear and the quayside deserted. At about 3.15, the Customs men were finally allowed to take off the hatch covers of the Berthe where of course they found nothing but coal.

The next morning in London Carson received a one word telegram – LION – the code for full success.

 

[IanBertram]

From Aristocrat to Revolutionary - the letters of Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald
Volume 1 1905-1919
Published by the Limerick Workers Press 1955

After the 'Battle of Parliament Square', Lady Charlotte was taken by her father to their home in Ireland. He was annoyed with his daughter for 'brawling in the streets' as he put it, but he remained supportive of the general principle of women's suffrage. The increasingly violent behaviour of the WSPU however led to a break both by him and his daughter.

In February 1911, only a couple of months after the family move to Limerick, Charlotte's father, Lord Ballincarron, died. The title passed to her twin brother David, who preferred the life of London to rural Ireland. Accordingly, he made over the family house in Limerick to his sister, together with sufficient money to maintain it and to keep her in a 'suitable' style. From there she began her extraordinary correspondence with prominent figures in the arts, literature, politics and science. No one of note seems to have escaped her attention. In her personal archive are copies of letters (and replies) to George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Rosa Luxembourg, Tom Mann, all three Pankhursts, Charlotte Despard, Eugene Debs, James Connolly, Lorenzo Portet, Emma Goldman, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Marianne Moore, Winston Churchill, Herbert Asquith, George Askwith, Albert Schweitzer and many others.

She did not however limit her activities to correspondence. She was a member of the WSPU before her move to Ireland and after quitting membership she remained closely linked with Sylvia Pankhurst and her Women's Suffrage Federation. On settling in Limerick in 1910 she quickly joined the Irish Women's Franchise League and later became an active member of the Irish Women Workers' Union. She was closely associated with most of the key figures of the Irish Left, working tirelessly to bring together the three strands of socialism, women's suffrage and Irish Independence. Indeed, without her involvement it is unlikely that Ireland would have escaped the shift to the right that was such a dramatic feature of English politics in the 1920s and 30s.

Her break with the WSPU came early in 1912, even before they began their major campaign of arson and bomb attacks.

3rd June 1912
Dear Mrs Pankhurst,
Until now I have given the W.S.P.U. my unlimited and unstinting support. After the appalling behaviour of the police in Parliament Square in 1910, I was convinced that direct action was needed if women were to attain equal suffrage rights. The latest campaign though, of attacks on pillar boxes and arson attacks on public buildings, is going too far. I now hear talk of much more to come and perhaps worse. These tactics will not gain us support, but the opposite. Attacks on post boxes do not make any difference to the men in control, they only disrupt the lives of ordinary people, men and women. The burning down of buildings, even buildings largely used by men such as cricket pavilions places lives at risk. If the talk I hear is to be believed then very soon someone will be killed and it is highly likely to be an innocent person uninvolved in the struggle. I must therefore resign my membership of the W.S.P.U.

With great regret
Charlotte Fitzgerald

The reply was brief and acerbic:
To be militant in some way is a moral obligation. Every woman owes this to her own conscience and self-respect, and to future generations of women. If any woman does not take part in militant action, she shares in the crime of the Government.
EP

 

[IanBertram]

Suffragism becomes terrorism - the Suffragist Terror Campaign of 1912-1913

At first demonstrations by women determined to get the vote were limited to heckling at public meetings and mass public demonstrations. The 'Battle of Parliament Square' however changed things. Mrs Pankhurst, who to a large degree was the WSPU, decided that if men were willing to use such violence against women in peaceful demonstrations, then reciprocal violence was the only way in which they were likely to achieve change. She saw how Republican violence had driven Asquith's government into considering Home Rule, she saw how Sir Edward Carson, a respected politician was actively advocating and supporting public resistance to the will of Parliament and concluded that women needed to take the same approach.

The first steps were tentative. Women shopping in London would suddenly pull from their bags a hammer and smash a shop window, crying 'Votes for Women'. Newspaper reports however dismissed these events as the actions of cranks. Accordingly the level of action was stepped up.

On 1 March 1912, a co-ordinated attack by dozens of women took place across the West End. in Regent Street, Piccadilly, Bond Street, Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square. At precisely 3.00 numerous women began smashing shop windows in Regent Street. As police rushed to the scene, another group struck in Oxford Street, then another in Piccadilly, in Oxford Street, Bond Street and Trafalgar Square. Within an hour the main shopping streets of central London were covered with broken glass. Over the next few weeks similar actions took place in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Dublin Belfast and many other towns. In early June, the windows of London just repaired were again shattered. Mrs Pankhurst declared that she was ready for sedition, or anything else, so long as it would bring the vote for women. If men came to the House of Commons with plenty of sticks and stones she would be there.

It was these events which prompted the resignation of Lady Charlotte Fitzgerald and many others from the WSPU. Some turned away from the cause altogether, others formed new groups to work alongside men for universal suffrage and for wider social justice. The response of the Pankhursts was typically autocratic, expelling anyone who failed to follow them exactly. In one of her many letters, Lady Charlotte observed drily: ‘Mrs Pankhurst wants us to have votes, but she does not wish us to have opinions.’

On 12 August 1912, the tearooms in Regents Park were damaged by fire. Two days later, the refreshment pavilion at Kew Gardens was burned to the ground. There were sporadic attacks on wood yards and empty buildings for the next couple of months. In October, several suburban railway stations were destroyed by fire and there were numerous fires, some serious, at country houses from the West Country to Norwich, and from Derbyshire to Kent. In November, racecourse stands at Ayr in Scotland and Thirsk in the North Riding were burnt to the ground. Worse was to come.

On the afternoon of 13 December 1912, a police officer noticed a milk can attached to railings outside the Bank of England. As he examined it smoke began to escape from the top. He immediately grabbed the can and plunged it into the water of a fountain outside the nearby Royal Exchange which extinguished the fuse. The bomb, when examined proved to be sophisticated in design. It consisted of a large charge of high explosive surrounded by nails, with a timing mechanism made up of a watch and battery. Had it exploded in that crowded location opposite the Stock Exchange, it would certainly have caused serious injuries and probably deaths.
On 18th February, 1913, a bomb exploded in a house which Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was having built at Walton Heath in Surrey. The building was almost completely destroyed. A few days later, an unexploded bomb was found at Westbourne Park tube station. Over the next few months more bombs were discovered in dozens of locations including St Pauls, the National Gallery, government offices in Whitehall and various post offices. Letters bombs and packages containing dangerous chemicals were also sent; a letter bomb was found addressed to the chief magistrate at Bow Street court and a package containing acids, addressed to Asquith, the Prime Minister, injured a member of staff in Downing Street. Only chance had prevented serious loss of life.

On the afternoon of 11 June 1913, that finally happened. A huge explosion echoed through Westminster Abbey, caused by a bomb packed with iron nuts and bolts and so designed to cause as much damage as possible. It had been planted near the Coronation Chair and went off just as a party of visitors were passing by. In the event, it was something of a miracle that only three died. The blast was partly absorbed by the stonework on an altar was damaged and parts of the coronation chair were blown off.

On 12 July, another attempt was made to plant a bomb in the church of St John the Evangelist, which had already been damaged in an explosion that March. This time the woman planting the bomb was caught red-handed. On the same day however a railway station near Leicester was badly damaged in an explosion, injuring several railwaymen and an explosion occurred on a mail train from Blackpool to Manchester, injuring one and destroying most of the mail being carried.

By now the bombing campaign was exacerbating the stresses in the WSPU caused by the autocratic behaviour of Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel and the organisation was losing much of its support. Mrs Pankhurst was however undeterred even to the point of expelling Sylvia, her own daughter who had become involved with a group of working-class women and helped them to set up the East London Suffrage Federation. Her sister Christabel told her: ‘You have a democratic constitution for your East London Federation; we do not agree with that … You have your own ideas. We do not want that.”

Although they could not have known it at the time, the disruption being caused at what was already an unstable time, was having a significant impact - but not as they expected. The German Ambassador to London sent a telegram to Berlin saying, in the context of German planning for a possible conflict with Britain:
This country is close to revolution. Across the north of England, in Scotland and in Wales they are hard pressed to deal with communist and anarchist insurgents. In Ireland they face opposition from both the Unionists opposed to Home Rule and the Republicans who demand it. Even their women are in revolt, with several attempts on the life of Asquith and senior members of the Government. At the same time unrest is stirring in their colonies. If we can ensure they are kept occupied in this way, I do not believe England will be willing to face up to Germany in the event of war. They have too much to contend with at home.

 

[IanBertram]

John Telford

Fenham Barracks, Newcastle
5.30 am. 28 July 1912
A bang on the cell door. “Get your arse out of bed Telford. Move.”
John Telford lurched awake. He'd been dreaming of his sisters again, of before. Before he had ended up here for refusing to shoot at his own workmates. The cell door clashed back. A tin bowl with some thin porridge and a battered mug containing some milk less weak tea clattered on the floor before the door slammed shut again.

“You've got ten minutes” said the voice.

Shaking himself from sleep John sat up. He grabbed his shirt and trousers from a hook on the wall and pulled them on, then slipped his feet into his worn boots. The same boots he had been wearing when the army arrested him three weeks ago. The same filthy clothes. He gulped down the tea and porridge before going to the high window and peering up at the sky. It was just beginning to get light outside. So far as he could tell it was going to be a warm day.
Another bang. “Stand away from the door” came the same voice. Obediently John stepped back against the wall. He'd already learned the hard way what would happen if he didn't. The door flew open and in walked a large man in the uniform of a Corporal in the Military Foot Police. “Come with me” he said, “you're going on a nice holiday to Durham.” He turned on his heel and marched out. John followed him. In the corridor outside were two more MPs. They fell in beside him, one holding each arm, while the corporal strode ahead.

Waiting outside was a horsedrawn van. The corporal opened the rear doors and motioned to John to climb in. He did so followed by the two MPs. The corporal banged on the side of the van calling “On your way driver”. The van clattered off across the barrack yard. John turned to the two soldiers sitting by the door. “What's going on?” The nearest, a skinny, sharp featured type simply ignored him. The other, a much older man answered however. “You are off to Durham Jail to start your sentence.”

John sighed to himself. He knew the day was coming, but he still hadn't reconciled himself to the idea of being in prison. The older man looked at him sympathetically. “Don't worry – two months ain't long. If these new regulations had come in before you done it, you could have had two years.” The skinny soldier snarled at him.
“Don't waste your breath on this coward Dan. He left his mates in the lurch – he deserves all he gets.”

“That's easy for you to say – you weren't told to shoot down your friends and family” replied John.

The older man looked at John again. “What happened then?”

“We were on the Town Moor in Newcastle, supposed to stop trouble at a big Union meeting. The bobbies tried to arrest Tom Mann and got themselves knocked about for it, then the cavalry charged in and all hell broke loose. The crowd panicked when some of them were trampled and they ran. My mother and two sisters were there, and lots of my workmates. I could see them in the crowd as they ran towards me. I wasn't going to shoot them down. It was the bobbies that caused it anyway. So I got out of the way with my squad. None of us were willing to shoot.”

The skinny one's expression softened slightly. “You was in the Terriers weren't you? Stands to reason you wouldn't shoot. I don't suppose I would shoot my old mum either. My old man might be another thing though.” He laughed bitterly.

The horse clopped on slowly.

“We aren't going all the way to Durham in this are we?”

“No” said Dan “we're going to put you on a train at Gateshead. It's quieter there than the Central. I'd have a kip if I were you. You'll probably going to need all the rest you can get once you get to Durham.”

John lifted his feet on to the bench beside him and laid his head back against the side of the van. There were no windows but a small canvas hatch in the roof and two small grills in the rear doors let in some light. He dozed.

John woke suddenly, looking around. From the light filtering in to the van it was now fully light. The van had halted and from outside he could hear shouting. Suddenly the doors at the rear were thrown open and a rifle thrust through.

“You two! Out” The two MPs glanced at each other before slowly climbing out. The rifle withdrew and a head was stuck through the door. “Are you going to stay there all day?” John looked on in amazement. “Jack? What the hell are you doing?”

“What do you effing think I'm doing. I'm getting you out – now come on before we get company.”

John clambered down from the rear of the van and looked around. They were halted just on the High Level Bridge. Ahead of him he could see half a dozen men in military uniform armed with rifles guarding the road. He recognised members of his platoon. He turned to his rescuer. It was his cousin, Jack Jones, a fellow member of the Territorials and like him a corporal in charge of another section. They had been on duty with him that day but luckily had not been near any of the trouble.

“This is mutiny though Jack.”

“It's not mutiny mate – its a revolution! Those bastards in London have been sending in the regulars to shoot us down across the country for too long. Now we are fighting back.”

 

[IanBertram]

The workers, united, can never be defeated...

The violence that erupted across the North East after the killings on Newcastle Town Moor was at first indiscriminate and undirected. The sheer fury of it had stunned everyone. The major problem for the government in responding was that although it had begun with a rail strike, and indeed that strike was still going on, it seemed no longer to be a factor in the disturbances. Rioters made no demands, indeed there seemed on the face of things to be no group in a position to make demands.

In a meeting with employers in August, Askwith was pessimistic.

We are sitting on a powder keg. The army is sorely stretched and in Ireland we may yet see more trouble. If trouble on the scale we have seen should break out again, I am not convinced it could be contained.​

Although he had not initiated the violence Tom Mann and other activists were now in hiding trying to avoid arrest under the Emergency Powers Act. Mann surfaced briefly from time to time to address meetings but always without advance warning and always with a strong guard. Wherever he did appear he was always given a rapturous reception.

In his speeches he was always careful to avoid explicit calls to violence, stressing instead the need for collective action by workers. He would frequently point however to the success of Unionists in Ulster in organising themselves for self-defence and repeatedly urged the creation of local self defence groups to protect communities against police and army attacks and to take over policing duties for themselves. In one speech in Leeds in September (later published in the form of a handbill and widely distributed) he said:

Is this government concerned for the working man? No - they treat us as less than human, like Mr Wells' Morlocks. We are not judged equally as human beings before God, let alone before the law.​

Mr Carson raises a private army and how does the government respond? It does nothing! ​

I publish a leaflet reminding soldiers that they are also sons of workers and ask them not to shoot their brothers and sisters and how does the government respond? It locks me up and shoots down men and women attempting to defend themselves against the violence of the state. It locks up anyone who dissents.​

Mr Carson says he would rather be ruled by the German Emperor than by other Irishmen and what does the government do? It does nothing?​

I say to you we have no need of rulers, that no man should rule any life but his own and what does the government do? It locks up the publishers and breaks the presses and burns the leaflets.​

Mr Churchill says it is the destiny of the British to rule over a glorious empire. I say to you there is no glory in Empire. It is not glorious to shoot down your fellow man in the name of Empire. ​

It is not glorious. ​

The work of government should be the work of free men, acting together of their own volition, not imposed in the name of Empire. We can accept our subservient past or we can make our own future. A future without masters, without oppression, where men and women live free lives. A future where working men are not tricked into violence against their own.​

At the May-Day celebration in London last year, when it was estimated that no less than 40,000 were gathered together in Hyde Park, the capitalist press were disappointed in being able to report a single instance of drunkenness or disorderly conduct. The capitalists are more afraid of these silent, earnest multitudes than of the old-time rioters. For they suggest the possibility of organisation – and organisation is the one thing that the capitalist dreads, more even than the Ballot box.​

His syndicalist perspective was not popular everywhere of course. The leaders of the Craft unions in particular could see their power base being eroded daily and proved happy to collaborate with employers and government officials in denouncing the local Defence Committees and worker takeovers of municipal water and gas works appearing across the North East.

Again however Mann had a blunt response, once more widely distributed through clandestine presses.

Sectional unionism is our curse. The ability to act trade by trade, occupation by occupation, each independent of the other, may have been of some service a couple of generations ago. But it is of no use now! I saw in Australia, mounted police carefully conveyed a distance of fourteen hundred miles by enginemen, guards, linesmen, etc., each of whom belonged to his particular trade union. The supplies for these policemen, with their horses and carbines, swords, revolvers and baggage were all handled by Union men. And here is the astounding paradox! These same Union men were subscribing given sums per week to help the Broken Hill miners to carry on the fight, While Actually Engaged in Entrenching and Supplying the Enemy.​

We can now see this happening here, in our own country, everyday. We see blacklegs, police and soldiers with all their necessary food, liquor, bedding etc., etc., being shipped and conveyed over hundreds of miles by rail and road, as well as water, by Union men. It is these Union men, and not the capitalists who beat the other Unionists trying to resist reduction or obtain increases. And so it must continue until we can organise by Industry and not by Trade, until we can unify the Industrial Movement into one compact fighting force.​

Comrades! We have come to a parting of the ways. It is no longer possible for us to continue as we have – that is to say as we were 80 years ago. We must not go out to meet the Maxim with a blunderbuss! The discontent which has been spreading during the past year or two seems at last likely to break out into rebellion. The spirit which provokes the rebellion needs encouraging and so does the intelligence to direct it. ​

Can we think that the Masters have sat still all these years while the membership of the Unions has been growing? We know that they have not. We know from the evidence of recent strikes that the complexities of modern industry have aided the organisation of the Masters to defeat us. We have fought, and some have died, for the acquisition of trifling concessions that have made precious little difference in our lives and no difference whatever in our complete subjugation to the Master class. And while we hesitate the Trust is growing about us. Today the small manufacturer is doomed. Every year the big men get fewer and bigger. Every year the organisation of the Masters is automatically simplified against us.​

Slowly but surely it is coming to be realised in the Labour Movement that Sectional Unionism is played out; that economic organisation is more than merely helpful to the attainment of better conditions; that it is not only a means, but the chief means, whereby progress can be made. ​

Our French comrades have already learnt this hard lesson. They have eliminated the antagonisms and sectional craft interests, and they have proved by their behaviour that they dare fight and know how to fight. They are, for the most part, anti-patriotic and anti-militarist. They are “non” not “anti” Parliamentarians. They favour resorting, when advisable to the General Strike. ​

They declare themselves revolutionary. But while working for the Revolution they do not neglect to do all possible to secure general betterment. They declare that the workers have no country and are not prepared to fight in the interests of a bureaucracy but most distinctly are prepared to fight for the overthrow of Capitalism – in France and elsewhere. ​

Comrades – what should this movement that is now appearing in Britain be like?​

It must be avowedly and clearly Revolutionary in aim and method.​

Revolutionary in aim, because it will be out for the abolition of the wages system and for securing to the workers the full fruits of their labour, thereby seeking to change the system of society from Capitalist to Socialist.​

Revolutionary in method, because it will refuse to enter into any long agreement with the masters, whether with legal or State backing or merely voluntary; and because it will seize every chance of fighting for the general betterment – gaining ground and never losing any.​

The State is essentially a ruling class organisation and its functions are chiefly coercive. The State came into existence with the rise of private property and a privileged class; its main functions have always been the protection of upper class property and of the keeping of the masses in subjection.​

There is now a movement abroad for the State ownership of the railways. The railwaymen do not appear inclined to grow wildly enthusiastic about the proposal. It is perhaps as well that they do not as it will save them from going through a process of disillusionment later on. As the conflict between capital and labour becomes keener, the workers are having impressed up on them the real character and functions of the existing State.​

The State, which now sends British soldiers and police to protect blacklegs and to bludgeon British workers who are fighting for their bare rights to existence can hardly be expected to inspire the workers with much confidence as to its intentions as an employer of labour. The lesson of recent days where strikers have been forced to return to work or threatened with all the penalties of military law under the Emergency Powers Act has not been lost on the British railwayman. ​

It is of little use to have Board of Trade officials like Mr Askwith roaming around, ever anxious to secure peace, sweet peace, at any price to the workers. The Board of Trade is a Government Department. The Government is in essence, and in detail, the machine of the Plutocracy, through which and by which they keep the workers in subjection.No Board of Trade official dare do anything to advance the interests of the men. ​

A State owned Railway would be no more than a Government Department. For any man to imagine that a Government Department may be seeking to do anything that will facilitate the overthrow of the ruling class is to declare himself a fool; and the converse of this is that Government Departments are extending their sphere of influence even to the extent of obtaining a controlling power over the workmen's own organisations in the interest of the capitalist class. To 'tie the workers down,' that is their work. The worker cannot secure what good sense demands unless he can show fight. The wily employing class knows this, and to be able to say they will leave the matter in the hands of a public official, as though that were not the same thing as keeping it in their own hands, suits them exactly.​

“Unite” was Marx's advice long ago, but we have never properly acted upon it. Now is the time to do it, and we will do it right here in Britain. We will lead them a devil of a dance and show that there is life and courage in the workers of the British Isles.​

Those who are asleep had better wake up or they'll be kicked out of the way. Those who say it can't be done had better stand out of the way and look on while it is being done.​