WI: Easter 1916 handled by the book.

RyanF

Banned
One of the main obstacles to a more even-headed response to the Rising was the man in charge of the response. General John Maxwell, with experience from the Sudan and South Africa, took a decidedly colonial view of the Rising - and he responded as he would have seen fit in other places.

If a different commanding officer then cooler heads might prevail and a more legalistic response might have been followed after the surrender. There would still have been executions (Casement certainly and perhaps others for directly collaborating with the Germans) but most of them would find themselves imprisoned. The difference here being that executions of several after trial would be seen much differently than the summary executions of all - keeping in mind that citizens of Dublin were seen to walk up to the rebels and spit on them for taking such action when their relatives were fighting the Germans abroad, holding back execution except in those instances of collaboration after a court martial would do less to inflame the opinion in favour of the rebels. By no means would there not still be those angered by any executions but public opinion might not have turned quite as much as it did following the summary executions we know.

On conscription, there was a proposed scheme during World War I to allow Irishmen who would not serve in the British Army to volunteer for the French Army instead. It then becomes a question of whether this scheme would provide the bare minimum of numbers needed and how unwilling the government would be to stoke Irish tensions (even OTL there was a great deal of reluctance to extend conscription to Ireland).

There are a few further points to consider even if these two come to pass, whatever the outcome of any coupon/khaki election.

Firstly, it should be remembered that the UK seemed destined to head for civil war in the period between the death of Edward VII and the start of the First World War. The Llanelli riots, the Curraugh Incident, and even the Easter Rising were all exanples of this that the distraction of total war for the most part swept away. After they War as we know the Irish War of Independence began in Ireland, but tensions flared in Britain too. On the South Coast of England there were mutinies by soldiers against being sent to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks in late 1918, in January 1919 Glasgow and Belfast there were workers' risings that saw the red flag raised over both cities, that Summer a riotous mob burned down Luton Town Hall, and in August a policeman's strike in Liverpool saw a warship dispatched from Orkney to the Mersey with its guns aimed at the city. What stopped these conflicts from worsening or becoming a coherent movement? The IRA. The bombings gave people an external enemy to focus on much as the War with Germany had done five years earlier. If the battle for home rule is kept to the ballot box and smoke-filled rooms then the Coalition government may lose the external enemy that was used to distract the populace from their own grievances.

If, and it is still a pretty big if, there is is peaceful establishment of a Home Rule Parliament (with Ulster either peacefully integrated following assurances or a four county temporary opt-out without a separate Belfast governing) then there might be the chance of further Home Rule bodies set up in Scotland, Wales, and even the regions of England (Churchill spoke of this). A Scottish Home Rule Bill even reached the second reading in 1913 but never progressed any further due to the deteriorating situation in 1914. A lone Home Rule Ireland within the centralised UK would eventually look to go its own way (though it is interesting to imagine remaining a Kingdom), but as one of many states within a devolved nation almost approaching federalism?

A final point is on the large scale migration from Ireland following the First World War. A man driver of this was the violence of the War of Independence then Civil War (particularly those emigrating to Britain) and the resulting economic problems, without them emigration from Ireland in that period is liable to be less, but still obviously present.
 
Because the majority don't want to be British subjects.


Start with TPC's Ireland in the Twentieth Century and Lee's Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society.

After that I suggest:
Ireland in the Twentieth Century John A. Murphy.
Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000 Diarmuid Ferriter
Turning Points in Twentieth Century Irish History Thomas E. Hachey (editor)
A Nation and Not a Rabble Diarmaid Ferriter

Poor choice of wording, there I meant British subjects as in subjects of the British monarchy.

The majority of Irish people were still loyal to the crown, they just wanted Home Rule.

And as to the Irish /German comment, that was clearly a turn of phrase. One you used to ignore the series of points actually made.
 
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