The Easter Rising and the British Army

Wolfpaw

Banned
(Posted here on the advice of Cook :))

I was wondering if anybody here knew what effects the Easter Rising of 1916 had on the British war effort, specifically how it effected Irish troops and the treatment of Irish troops on the Front.


Any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)
 
According to wikipedia, there were about 16,000 British soldiers brought in to suppress the rising. In April 1916, the total strength of the British Expeditionary Force in France was just over 1.1 million, which I don't think includes Indian, Canadian, South African, and ANZAC forces. I doubt it had much of a material impact, although there might have been some morale/psychological impact.
 
Ah, you're looking specifically at Irish recruitment, not diverted British manpower. I think about 200,000 Irishmen fought in WWI, of whom about half were from Ulster and half from what would become the Republic of Ireland. Ulster was about 40% of Ireland's population in the 1911 census,
so assuming an upper limit of Irish recruitment from the rest of Ireland at Ulster levels proportionate to population, the Easter Rising cost Britain no more than about 18,000 Irish recruits.
 
The British Establishment and much of the native Sleeveen Irish capitalist class regarded the rebellion as treason hence the reason for the appalling state murder through execution of the leaders and the frothing at the mouth insistence that they take such a course from the collaborating latter!
It is recorded that a number of soldiers were brought over from Wales to quell it and they were never told they were going to Ireland and they actually thought initially they were in France!
Analguous to the behaviour of another Evil Empire later in the 20th Century, when Soviet troops were sent to quash the Hungarian Revolution, but were told they were going to fight the Brits and the French at Suez!
Rem Ireland was the testing laboratory for colnialism and evil practices under it!
 
The British Establishment and much of the native Sleeveen Irish capitalist class regarded the rebellion as treason hence the reason for the appalling state murder through execution of the leaders and the frothing at the mouth insistence that they take such a course from the collaborating latter!
It is recorded that a number of soldiers were brought over from Wales to quell it and they were never told they were going to Ireland and they actually thought initially they were in France!
Analguous to the behaviour of another Evil Empire later in the 20th Century, when Soviet troops were sent to quash the Hungarian Revolution, but were told they were going to fight the Brits and the French at Suez!
Rem Ireland was the testing laboratory for colnialism and evil practices under it!

It was hardly just the British and the Irish upper classes who were against the actions of the rebels. The people of Dublin were less than pleased with them. The rebellion had led to heavy damage to parts of Dublin and civilian casualties, not something the public were pleased with. And many people in Dublin had family members at the front after Redmond's appeal for the Volunteers to join the British army. Violent nationalism was a minority view before the Rising, most of Dublin where either Constitutional Nationalists or Southern Unionists (with far more of the former than the latter) and it wasn't until the executions that majority sympathy went went with the rebels
 
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