British Voices (17 page)

Ruses were also employed on our side quite frequently. One of the most successful was what was known as the ‘Q' lorry. This was an ordinary three-ton lorry, armour plated inside and loaded with a number of blankets. Inside was a crew with a couple of MGs. The idea was to send this lorry out into a desolate part of the country, where it would break down and be ostensibly left on the side of the road. The enemy would then come along to burn it, which gave the occupants the opportunity of some very good shooting.

Routine Movements. These were sometimes necessary, but should be, wherever possible, avoided. The Macroom Ambush of Auxiliaries and a great many other successful IRA operations were made possible by quite unnecessary routine movements. When routine movements are unavoidable, those making them should be accompanied by an escort capable of dealing with any situation that may arise.

The enemy, in a struggle of this nature, disregards all the ordinary rules of war. It is the duty of all ranks, therefore, to avoid any risk of being kidnapped. A good rule is to always ask yourself, before proceeding anywhere either on business or pleasure, ‘can the enemy possibly expect that I should make this journey?' If there is any chance of him doing so, then adequate precautions should be taken.

Every civilian should be looked upon as a potential enemy. It was clearly laid down in instructions issued that the safety of the soldiers is the first consideration. A favourite trick of the IRA was to mix with the crowd in a busy thoroughfare and suddenly make an assault on any military or police patrol that might be passing.

7. Suggested Future Tactics

As far as I know, no official book has been published on the subject of guerrilla warfare, such as we had in Ireland, but I will give my own ideas on the best tactics to be pursued should such conditions recur.

The question appears to resolve itself into the rival claims of the Block-House system, such as was adopted in South Africa, and the Mobile Column system.

The possibility of building block-houses was often discussed in 1921, but we reckoned then that to work any block-house system, we should require a great many more troops than there were at the time in the whole of Ireland. The country is so thick and intricate that it would be impossible to stop small parties of men getting through unless the block-houses were very close together.

On the other hand, if sufficient men were available, a line of temporary post or ‘stops' along the edge of the area being worked by the Mobile Column, would, I think, be of great assistance, as they would restrict the area of manoeuvres at the disposal of the enemy. In our area, for example, these might have been placed along the lines of the Bandon River while the mobile columns were working to the south of it.

In either case, whether block-houses are established or not, offensive action must be taken and this can be best done with a number of mobile columns moving about the country and mutually co-operating with each other. The composition of a column of this sort, of course, depends on the strength of the opposition likely to be encountered, but the basis in which it should be worked out is as follows:

Required:
A. Infantry
(i)
Escort for horse transport
(ii)
A bicycle patrol for long distance action
(iii)
A foot patrol for short distance action

B. Cavalry or MTs: A small body to work in conjunction with the Infantry.

Their role would be to ride on ahead by lanes or country tracks and occupy a position from which they could observe anybody trying to escape from the Infantry. They would then be in a position to ride them down and capture them.

A number of mounted gunners had arrived in Ireland at the time of the Truce, and this was the way in which it was intended to employ them.

On the above lines, a suitable organisation for a mobile Column during the Operations under review would have been:

Infantry: two strong platoons – say 60 OR of which two section would be mounted on bicycles.

MI: One Troop.

Each of these columns should be supplied with some form of WT, to enable them to be controlled from a central position. This was a deficiency from which we suffered considerably in 1921, as we found
that very often the best information was obtained by Brigade headquarters in Cork and they had no means of transmitting it quickly to the column in the field.

Another difficulty, which handicapped us severely, was the system by which the meat and bread rations for the Mobile Columns had to be obtained from the local towns. This meant that the butcher and baker in these towns had to be warned a day or so beforehand to have these rations ready, which was practically equivalent to publishing the directions of our next move. The element of surprise was practically forfeited. It is important that the Columns employed on work of this nature should be as self contained as far as their supplies are concerned. They should either carry them with them in the form of preserved rations or be accompanied by a butcher and purchase directly from the farms.

It is interesting to note that Sir John Moore, when he was stationed at Bandon in 1798, was confronted with a very similar problem to that which faced us in 1920-21 and that he also adopted the Mobile Column system, working it in much the same way as we did in 1921, ie, several columns co-operating and all working towards one given point.

Conclusion

The importance of the strict observance of the Principles of War as laid down in FSR is perhaps more clearly seen in this type of warfare than in any other:

• (i)
  Every operation or small raid must have an objective
  
• (ii)
  Offensive action is essential to success
  
• (iii)
  Surprise must be aimed at in every operation, closely allied to this is Security, ie, safety from surprise
  
• (iv)
  The Crown Forces had to be concentrated before offensive action could be taken. It was only thus that Economy of Force could be effected and the required number of troops made available
  for active operations
  
• (v)
  Mobile Columns are useless unless they have real mobility, and finally
  
• (vi)
  Close co-operation between neighbouring area commanders is essential. Otherwise quiet districts will be left into which the enemy can retire and rest when heavily pressed.
  

Details

This letter is part of a collection of personal papers of Montgomery's stored in the Imperial War Museum. Montgomery's military career began as a second lieutenant in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1908; he was promoted Lieutenant in 1910, and Captain in 1914. He served as a Brigade Major in France from 1915 to 1917, as a General Staff Officer, Grade 2 (Temporary Major) from 1917 to 1918, and as a General Staff Officer, Grade 1 (Temporary Lieutenant Colonel) from 1918 to 1919. During 1919, he served with the British Army of the Rhine for several months, as a General Staff Officer, Grade 2. He returned to the role of Brigade Major with the 17th Infantry Brigade in Cork, from 5 January 1921 to 23 May 1922. Montgomery left Ireland to serve in the United Kingdom, in the Southern and later the Northern Commands. He served at the Staff College, Camberley, from 1926 to 1929, as a Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, and was an Instructor at the Indian Army Staff College at Quetta from 1934 to 1937. Montgomery returned to England as a Brigade Commander with Southern Command. In 1938, he was appointed a Major General, and given command of a division in Palestine and Transjordan. He
commanded the Third Division in France in 1939, and in 1942 he was given command of the Eighth Army, winning the Battle of El Alamein. He was the Allied assault leader at Normandy. Later he was given command of the Twenty-First Army Group and promoted to Field Marshal. Montgomery was Commander in Chief of the British Army of Occupation in Germany. In 1946, he was made Chief of the Imperial General Staff. From 1951 to 1958 he was Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. He retired from military service in 1958.

A
LETTER WRITTEN
to Lt General A.C. Percival and dated York 14/10/23.

My Dear Percival,
I give below a few notes on the points you asked about.

Staff Duties

These became somewhat arduous owing to the large area a Brigade to look after, and the number of units it had to deal with. In the 17th Brigade, we had at one time nine battalions, and the work was frightfully hard. There were two alternatives in order to ease this.

• (a)
  Create more Brigades
  
• (b)
  Keep the same number of Brigades, but increase the staff of each.
  

Alternative
(b)
was adopted at first, as it was considered that the situation was so complex that a new Brigadier would take several months to pick up the threads, this of course was quite true. So they increased our staff and I had three staff captains, in addition to a large ‘I' staff. But it was really too much, and after the ‘Truce' had been on some time and it looked as if the show would break out again they split

I am certain that the best procedure was mobile columns mutually co-operating with each other. But they must have WT, so that they can be operated direct from Brigade headquarters if required, we often found that the best intelligence was received by us in Cork, and if columns had no WT we could not take advantage of it.

Attitude of Staff towards Civilians

We were not brought into such close touch with the Loyalists as you were, and the result was I think that we did not appreciate their suffering to the same extent. Personally, my whole attention was given to defeating the rebels and it never bothered me a bit how many houses were burnt. I think I regarded all civilians as ‘Shinners', and I never had any dealings with any of them.

Aeroplanes

These were really of no use to use, except as a quick and safe means of getting from one place to another.

Even then the landing grounds were few and far between. The pilots and observers knew nothing whatever about the war, on the conditions under which it was being fought, and were not therefore in a position to be able to help much.

General Remarks

My own view is that to win a war of this sort you must be ruthless. Oliver Cromwell, or the Germans, would have settled it in a very short time. Nowadays public opinion precludes such methods, the nation would never allow it, and the politicians would lose their jobs if they sanctioned it. That being so I consider that Lloyd-George was really right in what he did, if we had gone on we could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like an ulcer the moment we removed the troops. I think the rebels would probably refused battles, and hidden away their
arms etc. until we had gone. The only way therefore was to give them some form of self government, and let them squash the rebellion themselves, they are the only people who could really stamp it out, and they are still trying to do so and as far as one can tell they seem to be having a fair amount of success. I am not however in close touch with the situation over there, but it seems to me that they have had more success than we had. I arrived at the above conclusion after a great deal of thought on the subject. You probably will not agree.