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against Ulster. The second project was to spread their propaganda—That Home Rule will be Home Rule—in the Army with a view to preparing the Army to disobey the Government in case Government decided to use the Army for forcing Home Rule on Ireland. The first became unnecessary as they succeeded easily in bringing about the second. This became clear in March 1914 when there occurred the Curragh Incident. The Government had reasons to suspect that certain Army depots in Ireland were likely to be raided by the Unionist Volunteers. On March 20th, orders were sent to Sir Arthur Paget, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in Ireland, to take steps to safeguard these depots. His reply was a telegram to the effect that officers were not prepared to obey and were resigning their commissions and it was feared that men would refuse to move. General Sir Hubert Gough had refused to serve against the Ulster Unionists and his example had been followed by others. The Government realized that the Army had become political,* nay, partisan. It took fright and decided in favour of partition acting on the well-known maxim that wisdom is the better part of valour. What made Asquith change his position was not conscience but the fright of the Army rebelling. The fright was so great that no one thereafter felt bold enough to challenge the Army and enforce Home Rule without partition.
Can His Majesty’s Government be depended upon to repeat in India what it did in Ireland ? I am unable to answer the question. But two things I will say. The first thing is that His Majesty’s Government knows full well what have been the consequences of this partition of Ireland. The Irish Free State has become the most irreconcilable enemy of Great Britain. The enmity knows no limits. The wound caused by partition will never be healed so long as partition remains a settled fact. The Partition of Ireland cannot but be said to be morally indefensible inasmuch as it was the result not of the consent of the people but of
- On this point see Life of Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson by Major General Sir C. E. Callwell, Vol. I., Chapter IX ; also Parliamentary Debates (House of Lords), 1914, Vol. 15, pp. 998-1017, on Ulster and the Army. This shows that the Army had been won over by the Ulsterites long before the Curragh Incident. It is possible that Mr. Asquith decided in 1913 to bring in an Amending Bill to exclude Ulster from Home Rule for six years because he had become aware that the Army had gone over to Ulster and that it could not be used for enforcing Home Rule.