Ireland under Home Rule must, in the event of war, be regarded as a
potentially hostile country.
In this statement resides the dominant factor of the situation viewed
from the naval and military point of view. It is not asserted that the
government of Ireland would be disloyal; but it is asserted that the
authorities charged with the defence of his Majesty's dominions cannot
afford to take risks when the safety of the country is at stake. That
such risks must exist under the circumstances indicated, is obvious to
all those who have studied the speeches of the leaders of the Irish
Nationalist party, in which they have unequivocally declared their
intention to rid Ireland of English rule, and in which they extol as
heroes such men as Theobald Wolfe Tone, who intrigued with France
against England in order to achieve Irish independence, and who took his
own life rather than receive the just reward of his deeds. That some
among the Irish Nationalist leaders have recently professed their
devotion to the British Empire cannot be regarded by serious persons as
a relevant consideration. The demand for Home Rule is in fact a demand
for separation from the United Kingdom or it is nothing. Naval officers
are accustomed to deal with facts rather than with words.
In the great sea-wars of the past, Ireland has always been regarded by
the enemy as providing the base for a flank attack upon England. Had
King Louis XIV. rightly used his opportunities, the army of King William
would have been cut off from its base in England, and would have been
destroyed by reinforcements arriving from France to assist King James
II. There is no more concise presentment of the case than the account of
it given by Admiral Mahan in "The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
1660-1783."
"The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an
estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger
from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV., when the
French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the
gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost
wholly under the control of the natives and the French.
Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English--a
weak point in their communications--than an advantage to the
French. The latter did not venture their ships-of-the-line in its
narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon
the ocean ports in the south and west. At the supreme moment the
great French fleet was sent upon the south coast of England, where
it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same time twenty-five
frigates were sent to St. George's Channel, against the English
communications. In the midst of a hostile people the English army
in Ireland was seriously imperilled, but was saved by the battle of
the Boyne and the flight of James II. _This movement against the
enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as
dangerous to England now as in 1690_[67]....
"There can be little doubt that an effective co-operation of the
French fleet in the summer of 1689 would have broken down all
opposition to James in Ireland, by isolating that country from
England, with corresponding injury to William's power....
"The battle of the Boyne, which from its peculiar religious
colouring has obtained a somewhat factitious celebrity, may be
taken as the date at which the English crown was firmly fixed on
William's head. Yet it would be more accurate to say that the
success of William, and with it the success of Europe, against
Louis XIV. in the war of the League of Augsburg, was due to the
mistakes and failure of the French naval campaign in 1690; though
in that campaign was won the most conspicuous single success the
French have ever gained at sea over the English."
Every great naval power has gone to school to Admiral Mahan; and this
country can hardly expect again to profit by those mistakes in strategy
which the gifted American writer has so lucidly exposed.
Ireland, lying on the western flank of Great Britain, commands on the
south the approaches to the Channel, on the west the North Atlantic; and
on the east the Irish Sea, all sea-roads by which millions of pounds'
worth of supplies are brought to England. On every coast Ireland has
excellent harbours. There are Lough Swilly on the north, Blacksod Bay on
the west, Bantry Bay, Cork Harbour and Waterford Harbour on the south,
Kingstown Harbour and Belfast Lough on the east--to name but
these--besides numerous lesser inlets which can serve as shelter for
small craft and destroyers. It should here be noted that Belfast
Harbour, owing to the enterprise of the Harbour Board, now possesses a
channel and dock capable of accommodating a ship of the Dreadnought
type[68].
There is no necessity to presuppose an actively hostile Ireland; but an
Ireland ruled by a disloyal faction would easily afford shelter to the
warships of the enemy in her ports, whence they could draw supplies,
where they could execute small repairs, and could coal from colliers
despatched there for the purpose or captured. Thus lodged, a fleet or a
squadron would command the main trade routes to England; and might
inflict immense damage in a short time. Intelligence of its position
could be prevented from reaching England by the simple method of
destroying wireless stations and cutting cables.
These considerations would necessarily impose upon the Navy the task of
detaching a squadron of watching cruisers charged with the duty of
keeping guard about the whole of Ireland.
Is the Admiralty prepared to discharge this office in the event of war?
If not, there falls to be considered the further danger of the invasion
of Ireland. That such a peril is not imaginary, is proved by the fact
that Ireland has been invaded in the past.
The attempt of Hoche and Grouchy to land in Bantry Bay in 1796 failed
ignominiously; and the next expedition designed to invade Ireland was
defeated at Camperdown. But in 1798, the year of the Great Rebellion in
Ireland, three French frigates evaded the British cruisers, and on
August 22 dropped anchor in Killala Bay. General of Brigade, Jean Joseph
Amable Humbert, landed with his second in command, General Sarazin,
several rebel Irish leaders, 1700 men and 82 officers.
On August 27 Humbert defeated the British troops at Castlebar "Races."
On September 8, his forces surrendered at Ballinamuck to Lord
Cornwallis. General Humbert was carried to England; and it is worth
noting that while he was on his way, Admiral Bompard set sail from Brest
with a ship of the line and three frigates, carrying 2587 men and 172
officers, commanded by General Hardy and the notorious Wolfe Tone
(called General Smith for the occasion). Bompard was turned back by an
English fleet of forty-two sail. The obvious conclusion of the whole
matter is that the fleet can stop an invasion, always provided that the
ships thereof are the right number in the right place at the right time.
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 is often discussed as though it was wholly
bred of the corruption of Ireland itself. The fact was, of course, that
it was an offshoot of the French Revolution, and that the condition of
Ireland at the time was no more than a contributory cause. My Lords
Cornwallis, Castlereagh, and Clare, in combating the forces of the
Rebellion, were actually in conflict with the vast insurrections of the
French nation. The design of the Irish rebels was to enlist the mighty
destructive force of France to serve their own ends.
Wolfe Tone and his colleague Lewens, in 1796, had succeeded in
persuading Carnot and the French Directory to embrace the cause of
Ireland. When the Rebellion of 1798 broke out, Lewens wrote to the
Directory reminding them that they had promised that France should
postulate the conferring of independence upon Ireland as the condition
of making peace with England, and specifying five thousand troops of all
arms, and thirty thousand muskets with artillery and ammunition, as
sufficient to ensure the success of the Rebellion.
The attitude of the Directory is defined in the despatch addressed to
General Hardy (upon whom the supreme command of the Humbert expedition
at first devolved) by Bruix, Minister of Marine, dated July 30, 1798.
"The executive Directory is busily engaged in arranging to send help to
the Irish who have taken up arms to sever the yoke of British rule. It
is for the French Government to second the efforts of a brave people who
have too long suffered under oppression."
In other words, the Directory regarded the achievement of her
independence by Ireland as an enterprise incidental to the greater
scheme of the conquest of England and of Europe.
It was further laid down in the despatch that "it is most important to
take every possible means to arouse the public spirit of the country,
and particularly to foster sedulously its hatred of the English name ...
There has never been an expedition whose result might more powerfully
affect the political situation in Europe, or could more advantageously
assist the Republic...."
Irish conspirators have never risen to play any part higher than the
office of cat's-paw to a foreign nation. To-day, they are content--at
present--to bribe with votes a political party in England. But it is
none the less essential to remember that, as in 1688 and as in 1798 a
great and militant foreign Power used the weapon of Irish sedition
against England, so in 1912 the same instrument lies ready to hand. For
the Home Rule conspiracy of to-day is nothing but the lees of the evil
heritage bequeathed by the French Revolution.
It is the business of the naval officer, who is not concerned with party
politics, to estimate the posture of international affairs solely in
relation to the security of the State. The condition of Ireland at this
moment, when the Home Rule issue has been wantonly revived, would, in
the event of a war occurring between Great Britain and a foreign Power,
involve the necessity of regarding Ireland as a strategic base of
essential value, a part of whose inhabitants might combine with the
hostile forces by giving them shelter and supplies, and even by inviting
them to occupy the country. Elsewhere in these pages, Lord Percy has
pointed out that the necessity of holding a disaffected Ireland by
garrisoning the country would totally disorganise our military
preparations for war--such as they are.
These considerations must materially affect strategical dispositions in
the event of war, involving the establishment and maintenance of a
separate force of cruisers charged with the duty of patrolling the sea
routes which converge upon Ireland, and of watching the harbours of her
coasts. As matters stand at present, such a force does not exist.
It may, of course, be urged that a strategical plan designed for the
double purpose of surveying the movements of a hostile battle-fleet and
of guarding the trade-routes, must of necessity cover the coasts of
Ireland, on the principle that the greater includes the less. The
argument, however, omits the essential qualification that a part of the
Irish population cannot be trusted. It is this additional difficulty
which has been introduced into the problem of naval defence by the
revival by politicians of the agitation of 1798, under another name.