Conscription, US Intervention and the Transformation of Ireland 1914-1918

This book analyses the relationship between the Irish home rule crisis, the Easter Rising of 1916 and the conscription crisis of 1918, providing a broad and comparative study of war and revolution in Ireland at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Destenay skilfully looks at international and diplomatic perspectives, as well as social and cultural history, to demonstrate how American and British, foreign and domestic policies either thwarted or fed, directly or indirectly, the Irish Revolution. He readdresses-and at times redresses-the well­ established, but somewhat inaccurate, conclusion that Easter Week 1916 was the major factor in radicalizing nationalist Ireland. This book provides a more nuanced and gradualist account of a transfer of allegiance: how fears of conscription aroused the bitterness and mistrust of civilian populations from August 1914 onwards. By re-situating the Irish Revolution in a global history of empire and anti-colonialism, this book contributes new evidence and new concepts. Destenay convincingly argues that the fears of conscription have been neglected by Irish historiography and this book offers a fresh appraisal of this important period of history.

Emmanuel Destenay is Associate Researcher at Sorbonne University, France.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Translation
Biography of France's Representatives
Introduction
Echoes of Sarajevo
Conventional narratives
Plea for a new historiography of the Irish Revolution
Diplomatic sources and French narratives
1 Political Crisis, British Intentions and Wartime
Uncertainties (January 1913-March 1916)
Home Rule and Ulster Unionism: the impossible settlement
War breaks out: Asquith's strategy, recruitment, and the leap
into the unknown
A distant war: propaganda and the war economy
Laissez-faire
policy and French concerns
Conclusion
2 Was the Rebellion a Turning Point? (April 1916-October 1916)
Allegiance and opportunities: US neutrality and the
preparation for an insurrection
Rebellion, reactions and extrapolations?
Aftermath and executions: the transformation of Ireland?
Partition: ongoing deadlock and critical solutions
Procrastination and the end of the old administrative regime
Conclusion
3 All Changed, Changed Quietly (October 1916-March 1917)
October 1916 and the threat of conscription
Opposing conscription, supporting Redmond
The decline in recruitment
The North-Roscommon by-election: the twilight of Sinn Féin
Conclusion
4 Resisting Conscription, Redefining Ireland
(March 1917-October 1917)
March 1917: the Home Rule controversy
Re-organizing
Sinn Féin: towards the Árd Fheis
The South Longford by-election:
the men of Easter Week
saved your sons from conscription
Tightening the grip: the East-Clare election
The Kilkenny by-election
Árd Fheis: the Sinn Féin Convention in October 1917
The shifting position of the Roman Catholic clergy
The growing number of Sinn Féin sympathizers
Conclusion
5 The Wartime Internationalization of the Irish question
(April 1917-March 1918)
US intervention: a blow to the separatist movement?
Colonel House and Ireland
The April 1917 Irish Convention: a 'flat failure' or a
'political camouflage'?
British procrastination
From fear of another black '47 to fear of conscription
(January-March 1918)
Unholy alliances, survival, and despair
The goal of the Peace Conference takes hold
Conclusion
6 Conscription, Betrayal and the Agony of the Irish
Parliamentary Party (April 1918)
From the Ulster 'conscription cry' to the German offensive
Heated debates and some revelations
A stab in the back of the dead man: a second execution
of dead heroes
'The miracle has been performed'
Preparing the fight here and abroad
An unpopular move among the British authorities in Ireland
Conscription: a counter-Wilsonian move?
Conclusion
7 Endgame (May 1918-December 1918)
The German plot
On the road to victory: summer 1918
December 1918: the triumph of the Internationalists
Conclusion
Epilogue
How the Great War transformed Ireland
Diverging destinies
National minorities, post-war
order and disillusions
Bibliography
Index