My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyStephen's Green in front of the hotel. They omitted, however, to guard the back doorof the hotel and the luggage lift, and an officer in my regiment, with a corporal, twomen and a machine-gun entered quietly by the back door and used the luggage lift toreach the roof, which he found also unguarded. The Irish had also omitted one otheressential precaution—to make traverses in the trench which they had dug on St.Stephen's Green in enfilade to the hotel. The rest was simple.The situation was very different when the Black and Tans arrived on the field after thewar. The Irish by then had learnt much about guerrilla fighting under the brilliantleadership of Michael Collins. They had the initial advantage of the capacity forsecrecy acquired in century-long resistance to a strong military power, and all theyneeded was training and experience in this kind of fighting on a large scale. Their newopponents, on the other hand, were a scratch lot, recruited all over the place andthrown into the fray without discipline or training. Some of them had previousexperience of warfare but few had any knowledge of that kind of fighting. Their lackof discipline was their fatality, and it lost them six hundred killed in six months. Theydid not move in the proper formation of regular troops, which is an arduous businessrequiring long training. They often drove around seated on open lorries, advertisingtheir arrival in advance by firing their weapons into the air under the dual stimulus ofalcohol and the desire to impress upon the Irish that the conqueror had at last arrived.Michael Collins and the boys would be waiting with a machine-gun behind one of thehigh banks at a corner of the road, where the open lorry on which the men were seatedhad to slow down. Once again, the rest was simple.This account is, of course, an over-simplification, but I believe in a short compass itgives a fair view of what happened. The Black and Tans were up against a situationwhich is baffling and exasperating even to disciplined, trained and experienced troops.This was the beginning in modern Europe of the guerrilla tactic which has since beendeveloped in many different spheres. In my essay, The European Situation, publishedin 1950, I foresaw that nuclear weapons would result in regular armies becoming the'paralysed giants', and that future fighting, if it occurred, would be conducted in theway of the guerrillas. Particularly in the cities, even regular troops, inhibited from theextreme of brutality by membership of a civilised nation, can be worsted by guerrillaswho emerge from obscurity to strike and instantly retreat again into cover of thedarkness which is provided by the support of the civilian population. At this point thestruggle becomes as much political as military. The competent guerrilla is half soldier,half politician, for his first business is to win and retain the support of the civilianpopulation which is his cover. In Ireland after the First World War that support wasready-made among the Irish people and was steadfast to an extraordinary degree.The response of the Black and Tans was partly spontaneous and partly organised. Therage of men without training or discipline who feel unable to hit back while sufferingheavy losses produced the stupid and brutal acts of individual violence which couldhave no effect except to swing opinion against them. But the attempt to break themorale of the civilians appeared to be systematic, and the object was clearly toprevent the Irish civilian population supporting the guerrillas. Sir Hamar Greenwoodwas the Irish Secretary; a decent Canadian in private life, but Lloyd George'sblustering bully boy in public. It was his business with much vituperation directedagainst the Irish and the Opposition to defend the policy of the government.133 of 424