General Sir Hubert Gough (1870-1963)
[This is a review by Desmond Greaves of the book, The Army and the Curragh Incident, 1914 (Publications of the Army Records Society; Vol. 2, edited by Ian F.W. Beckett, Bodley Head, 1986; ISBN: 9780370307381), in the Irish Socialist of October 1986. Desmond Greaves got to know General Gough during World War 2, when the latter was running the Commonwealth Irish Association. Some years later he and Gough corresponded in relation to James Connolly’s teenage British Army service (see Greaves’s Connolly research correspondence under “James Connolly” in the “Articles” section of this website). Greaves makes the following remarks about Gough in the “Reminiscence of Youth and Age” section of his Table Talk: “Old General Gough, whom I knew well, was bumped by Haig, as Carson had been ditched before him [General Sir Hubert Gough, 1870-1963, British army commander in World War 1]. They always ditch the Irishman when they get the chance. Gough rang me once during the War. ‘I want to show you something I’ve written,’ he said. I suggested a meeting in the Holborn Restaurant, which was quite a high-class one. When we went there we found that all the waiters were Gough’s former soldiers. It was ‘Good day, General’ and ‘What would you like, General?’ And even though it was the War and rationing time, we got mounds of food on our plates and had a right royal meal. Gough said to me, ‘It just shows’, he said, “that an Irishman can talk anything on to his plate.’ ‘Yes,’ I said to myself, ‘If he is a General and is being served by his former soldiers.’ What he wanted to show me was a plan for Ireland coming closer to the Empire in return for ending Partition, or something like that. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, ‘if a man stood on a soapbox and shouted out that, wouldn’t he soon get a crowd around him?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and soon there would be only the crowd and there would be no sign of him.’ This was his idea of politics, getting on a soapbox and shouting something out. But a very decent man.”
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In March 1914 the British State launched into its sharpest political crisis of the century.
For reasons never fully explained, the Cabinet feared the seizure of arms depot at Omagh, Armagh, Enniskillen and Carrickfergus, presumably by the fanatically unionist Ulster Volunteer Force.
General Paget, officer commanding British forces in Ireland, was instructed to protect them. This would have entailed sending forces north from the Curragh, County Kildare, and a number of officers, led by General Hubert Gough, who had no doubt who was to be their opponents, stated that they were not prepared to go, and would prefer to resign.
This book, edited by the senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, tells what happened in the army, and, apart from a short introduction, consists of documents, both official and personal, from a variety of sources.
These would satisfy most readers that the mutineers had a shrewd idea of what might have been expected of them.
Now the editor does not use the word “mutiny” because, one gathers, no orders were actually disobeyed, though surely there was what in civil law would be deemed a conspiracy to disobey.
On the other hand, General Paget’s “orders” authorized those who were domiciled in Ulster (number of counties not specified) could “disappear” while the contemplated action was in progress.
One might ask, When is in order not an order?
What exactly was contemplated? Was it something “defensive”, the protection of the depots from organised paramilitaries who were in defiance of Parliament? Or was it to be an attempt to disarm the Ulster Volunteers?
That something dramatic was at least considered is strongly suggested by Winston Churchill’s “immediate predilection to use the navy to bombard Belfast into submission” (page 10).
Hubert Gough could not claim Ulster domicile and preferred to accept dismissal.
The immense support he received must be seen in connection with the hysterical Tory campaign against the third Home Rule Bill, in which Carson and his followers boasted of their intention to break every law they could and predicted that Cabinet ministers would dangle from lampposts.
Some of the highest figures in the land were up to their necks in the agitation; and it is revealing that when the chief of the British General Staff as good as begged Gough to return to his duties, he told him: “If you don’t go back, all the War Office will resign” (page 249).
I met Gough a number of times during the war and estimated that his objection to the Home Rule Bill had been founded on class interests, rather than religious bigotry.
The excellent cover photograph gets him exactly, even to the puckish twinkle in his eye, and the touch of almost schoolboy mischief and “devilment”.
By then, of course, he was advocating the reunification of Ireland, though he still wished for a Commonwealth link.
He was not a political thinker, rather a man of the heart, and the records published here show that he supported his mistaken cause with courage and honesty, qualities not so obvious in the case of Paget, whose preposterous proposition had precipitated the crisis, for its implications were clear enough.
To the socialist, this book has the value of depicting a ruling class split into factions, telling the truth about each other, with top military leaders calling ministers “robbers and swine”, while the poor men were only trying to wriggle out of their commitments in the least uncomfortable way.
But it also illustrates how central to British political life is the first colony.
This is shown by the estimate given by the military members of the army council on 1 July 1914: “In the event of conflagration in Ireland the whole of the expeditionary force may be required to restore order, not only in Ireland but in Great Britain as well.”