Dominion by C.J.Samson (Pan Books)

What would have happened if Britain had not won the Second World War? This book looks at one possible permutation if things had not turned out as they did. Instead of Britain holding out and defeating Nazism they capitulate in 1940 and become a satellite of the Nazis. It is a great read with lots of detail and interesting insights into how life might have been.  I read a similar type book by Steven King about how the world would  have turned out if president Kennedy had not been assassinated by Oswald. Some interesting conjectures and surprises there.  I always thought it would be great book for an author to consider what would have happened in Ireland had the First World War not intervened in the rise of the two volunteer armies.  Would the Easter rising have taken place?

In Dominion ,  Winston Churchill has gone into hiding and leads the resistance movement in the country. The story centres on a David Fitzgerald a civil servant who joins the resistance. The plot centres on a friend in a mental institution, Dr Muncaster, who has the key to a nuclear secret. Both the resistance and the Nazis wish to talk to the Doctor and get the secret.  There is a good story plot which goes along at a fair pace while also putting in lots of detail about a Britain cowed into submission and living under a foreign power. It is chilling in places to consider what would have happened if the Jews had been rounded up here as was done on the continent.

So after reading this a few questions come to mind. What would the Ulster loyalists have done had the Germans taken over the UK? What would the IRA have done? Thrown their lot in with the Germans? On a trip to Auschwitz years ago I learned that Germans had plans for all of Ireland. Firstly they had all the Jews identified (which arises the question how?) the white Prods where being taken to England to work as farm labourers while the RCs in Ireland would have laboured the land here. The English nation was seen as superior to anyone living in Ireland?

I feel there would have been a major split in the Irish population with some working with the Nazis while others would have been vehemently opposed to them and to fascism in general. On the Prod side the same applies. Some probably would have taken to the new masters while others would have fought and died against Nazism. It is a strange memory to consider my time in Compound 21 which was the essence of Britishness and opposition to a united Ireland that some of the lads had Nazi stuff on their walls much to the dislike and disdain of Gusty. I wasn’t too happy about it myself. At the same time there was also a liking by some for the Israelis and the Jewish  fortitude on their fight to get a homeland despite huge opposition.

I think it is a fair assumption that should the Nazis have won, then Ireland’s neutrality would have meant little in the wider game of dominating Europe. Hitler would have got some pretext to march on Dublin and ensure that the Republic would not have been some sort of base or platform for American interests.  It raises the interesting prospect of Ulstermen fighting alongside Irishmen against a common foe? Could a resistance movement have won against Nazi occupation?  Was there enough of a fascist element within Ireland to have thrown their lot in with the Nazis?  The reprisals against Irishmen of whatever creed or colour would have been so vicious as to defy belief. The Nazi atrocities in mainland Europe would have been brought here. The interrogation methods of the Gestapo would make Ladas drive and Palace Barracks look like a trip to Butlins.

And what about  the longer term social repercussions? There would be no celebration on the 11^th of November. There would be no British Legion clubs. I would argue that the 12^th of July would have been made illegal if the Orange and Unionist sections were seen to be a seat of opposition and resistance. There would be no Union flag or Tricolour flying anywhere on the island.  Financial sanctions would mean there would have been no economic gain or prosperity for our peoples as Germany would have taken all the benefits for its own people.  Ulster and Irishmen may have been asked, or forced, to go and fight on the Russian front in a never ending war.

Imagine no Queen Elizabeth getting crowned, no coronation or sitting on the throne? It is generally accepted that the Royal family would have gone to Canada in exile.  Imagine a completely different type of press utterly censured to Nazi interests?  Would there have been a Common market? Imagine no BBC.

The list is endless. This is a book that entertains as well as making you think, just what would have happened?

 Reader.

Tommy and Peter.

There were many,  many sets of brothers who fought in the First World war e.g. see the story about the 3 Mc Gowan brothers posted on  28.6.13. Tommy and Peter Rooney joined up in Belfast in 1915 with the 14^th Battalion of the Rifles otherwise known as the Young Citizens Volunteers.  They were from Kilkeel. The YCV was set aside from the UVF at their start but they later became a battalion in their own right in the 36^th Ulster Division. . As the name suggests they were young but still eager to fight for their country against the Germans.  The story has been told many times. Joining up to get away from poverty.  Pride for the family and themselves. A belief in a just cause. Get the uniform, get out drilling. Down to the ferry.  Training in England. Strange and foreign fields.  Crossing to France. More drilling. Getting the first taste of battle. The sound of exploding shells, the dirt, the cold, lice. Pining for home. Thinking of loved ones . The two brothers entered the war proper in October 1915. They endured the cold winter while plans where drew for the ‘big push’ on the 1^st July 1916. The Somme.  On that morning they stood in Thiepval wood with thousands of Ulstermen. The mix of fear and excitement.  Not so far away a young man called Billy was throwing himself on a box of grenades and dying so that he could save his friends. Then up and out into a hell of fire and shell. Screams and blood. Vicious wounds, men lying dying.

We know the story of the advance and capture, the slaughter and then the retreat. Tommy was lucky. Seriously wounded with a bullet shot to the leg he was carried out to safety and eventually made it home. Peter was not so lucky. A shell hit his position and he was killed immediately. His remains, like tens of thousands, were never recovered. So what makes this story any different from the men of the Shankill, Newtownards Road, Tigers Bay, Sandy Row? Both brothers were Roman Catholics who no matter what, believed they had a duty to serve and fight for their country.  As much as Mc Fadzean and all the rest, these men were, and are, heroes.

James.

Respect.

In 1916 the First World War was well on its to slaughtering, injuring and traumatising hundreds of thousands of young men from all over Europe. Ireland had sent its sons of orange and green to that battlefield to fight in a common purpose. Inevitably prisoners were taken. Roger Casement, an Irish rebel, who would later be hanged, was on the Germans side. He wanted to recruit an Irish Brigade. He had permission to recruit from captured British soldiers of an Irish nationalist persuasion. If the Irish POWs agreed to go home to Ireland and fight the British then they would be released. Few accepted this offer. He tempted them with money and extra food. Of a possible 2500 prisoners only 53 took him up on his offer.

As an ex prisoner I can imagine the temptation to get out, to be free, to go home, by just saying you give up what you believe in. I can’t imagine the awful conditions that the prisoners were held in but no doubt they were difficult.  One simple decision to get away from all that.  And take your chances back home.

There is one quote by Irish POWs that says, “In addition to being Irish Catholics we have the honour to be British soldiers”.  I have to pay respect to these men for their courage and integrity at a time when the world had gone mad.  And that respect extends to all those men from all over Ireland who died in that Great War.

James.

Britain and the formation of modern Yemen

Aaron Edwards

Half a century ago today a tribal revolt began in the mountainous Radfan region of South Arabia (now Yemen), which was to have far-reaching repercussions for Aden, Britain’s only Middle Eastern colony and its military headquarters in the region. Most South Arabian tribes were Sunni Muslims, divided up into hundreds of different groupings, each part of larger confederations.

By 1967, the Radfan revolt was regarded as the opening salvo in a national liberation struggle that would lead to British withdrawal and the beginning of the end of its East of Suez role. Until then it was generally accepted that Britain would continue to play a leading role internationally, but with the devaluation of sterling in the mid-1960s the country’s economic base began to disintegrate. When it was returned to office, the Labour Party restricted defence expenditure, recognising that Britain could no longer afford an imperialising mission. Britain’s withdrawing from Aden in November 1967 left behind a non-functioning government. No official handover of power took place as in other colonial exits such as Malaya and Kenya. The new Peoples’ Republic of South Yemen was staffed by relatively inexperienced men who had been junior government officials under the British or led an armed struggle against their colonial masters.

Aden had been a viable entity during British rule, but the new state of South Yemen suffered from extreme poverty, political instability and structural violence. This Marxist regime drove out the old ruling sultans, sheikhs and amirs and established itself in palaces of the former elites. Crucially, the Marxists sought to eradicate the centuries-old tribal system exploited so well by the British to safeguard their interests in the region. After 1967 the Marxist regime also accepted aid from the Soviet Union in exchange for serving as a vital naval base. Arguably, Aden’s status as a safe-haven for a range of terrorist organisations – including the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and other Islamist-based groups – sowed the seeds of insecurity that western countries live with today.

Therefore it is important to reflect on the meaning of 14 October, especially in light of attempts to reach a political consensus about the kind of state Yemenis want in the run up to Presidential elections in 2014, the resurgence of secessionism in the south, and continuing violence from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Surprisingly, some southern Yemenis fondly recall the stability afforded by the British until 1967, while others blame Britain for their country’s historic problems. There are merits in both interpretations and much to be learnt by examining the Radfan revolt half a century ago.

The revolt began when the Egyptian Intelligence Service smuggled guns and ammunition across the porous border from North Yemen to dissident tribesmen in the British-administered Western Aden Protectorate. This rugged terrain, staunchly independent, risked becoming a no-go area for the British.

South Arabia became a Protectorate under the Colonial Office in the 1920s, with Britain exerting control through ‘bribery, bluff and bombing’. For Middle East analyst Fred Halliday this was part of Britain’s wider colonial strategy of ‘indirect rule’ – providing local tribal chiefs with guns and cash in exchange for non-interference in British control of Aden. There were few guarantees in this tribal system and frequent disputes, manifested for example in attacks on the British-trained Federal Regular Army (FRA).

When the British attempted to open the South Arabian interior to free trade in 1963 they set their Federal allies on a collision course with the Radfani rebels. The tribesmen had long resisted the imposition of trade tariffs by the local sultan. For centuries they had levied their own taxes on local traders and camel trains passing along the Dhala Road from Aden to the border with Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

As the local British Political Officer Godfrey Meynell would discover, colonial authority had limited purchase in Radfan. When he requested FRA support, the Radfanis saw it as a declaration of war and fighting broke out in Wadi Misrah, home to the restive Qutaybi tribe, part of the Radfani tribal confederation. The Qutaybis, led by Sheikh Rajih bin Ghalib Lab’uza, sent the FRA retreating to Dhala. After a disagreement between Meynell and the FRA commander, Colonel Haider Saleh al-Habili, Meynell contacted authorities in Aden and was told to return to Wadi Misrah in force the next day.

After a fierce battle on 14 October 1963, involving RAF Hawker Hunter aircraft and armoured cars, Sheikh Lab’uza was killed. Subsequently claimed as the first martyr of the National Liberation Front (NLF) struggle against the British, Lab’uza was replaced by 26-year-old Ali Ahmad Nasir Antar, who would later become Vice President of the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of South Yemen.

After terrorists tried to assassinate him in Aden, and in light of FRA casualties on the Dhala Road, High Commissioner Sir Kennedy Trevaskis authorised a more punitive military expedition. When this failed to repel the Radfani tribesmen, Trevaskis reluctantly turned to Britain’s Middle East Command which deployed a larger brigade-level force in April 1964. Radfan Force (known as Radforce), was spearheaded by 45 Commando, 1 East Anglian Regiment and 3 Para, backed by British aircraft, helicopters, artillery and tanks. In total 3,210,688 bullets, tens of thousands of grenades, hundreds of thousands of pounds of high explosive, and an enormous quantity of bombs and rockets, eventually broke Radfani dissidence.

By mid-June Radforce had succeeded in clearing Wadi Misrah of rebel tribesmen at a cost of only a handful of British casualties. The Dhala Road reopened and with it a renewed British determination to maintain their Arabian foothold. The Minister of Defence Peter Thorneycroft said in Parliament:

For the foreseeable future Aden will be necessary to our strategy, and our absence from it would both render us unable to discharge our direct obligations to our friends, and would set in train events harmful to the cause of peace. It is therefore our purpose and intention to stay there, and our military plans, dispositions and actions will be shaped to this end.

In other words, Aden would remain central to British grand strategy in the Cold War.

However, the growing insurgency faced by Britain was matched by the political challenge of establishing a broad-based government in Aden. When the Labour Party was returned to power in October 1964 they reversed Conservative policy on South Arabia. In 1966 the Foreign Office continued to back the Federal rulers only until ‘something better came along’. By early November 1967 Britain was ready to negotiate with the NLF and on 30 November the new state of Southern Yemen was born. In 1990, it was united with the North.

Examining the Radfan revolt 50 years on offers important insights into the current problems bedevilling Yemen’s bid to transition from the old regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh to a more representative government as promised by the current President Abdo Rabu Mansour Hadi.

October 2013

About the author

Aaron Edwards is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and author of the forthcoming book Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire   (Mainstream/Random House, 2014). aaron_edwards@hotmail.com

Ulster’s Ratlines: Part One

If anyone hasn’t been lucky enough to catch the wonderful display of original UVF memorabilia currently on view in the Spectrum Centre–it is open until the end of the week.

On the day when Martin McGuinness–Deputy First Minister–is asked to speak at a ceremony in Warrington remembering thos killed by an IRA bomb we post a revealing interview given some years back to reporter Tom Mangold.
This article first appeared in www.thebrokenelbow.com .

Gusty Spence and loyalism’s political challenges

Sinn Féin negotiator Mitchel McLaughlin looks at Tony Novosel’s new book on ‘The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism’

In my view, republicans should have more fully explored the potential for engagement and I believe that we are suffering from a deficit of mutual understanding even now, some 15 years after the Good Friday Agreement.

TONY NOVOSEL makes a convincing argument that loyalists had created peace and reconciliation proposals during the mid-1970s through to the mid-1980s period.

The author demonstrates this through substantial research of Sunday News articles (although most other newspapers refused to publicise this), additional articles carried in UVF magazine Combat, pamphlets and election manifesto material that a leadership group within loyalism (inspired by Gusty Spence whilst he was in Long Kesh) were developing radical new proposals.

These ideas were ahead of the prevailing political opinions (and expectations) of that period but, significantly, elements of these proposals were directly relevant in the negotiations which produced the Good Friday Agreement.

For perhaps understandable reasons, some observers (including republicans) might be surprised to learn that these arguments emerged from a process of discussion and analysis by figures within the UVF and Red Hand Commando. Subsequent leadership coups and a reversion to sectarian attacks would unfortunately demonstrate that Gusty Spence, Billy Mitchell, Ken Gibson and others did not carry these arguments within their own organisations and the wider unionist community. Nor did they foresee the cynical hostility of mainstream unionist political leaders who responded with open antagonism to the proposals, especially the potential for dialogue that was presented.

Interestingly, the author also cites the recognition of these senior loyalists that the British Government (especially its intelligence services) had actually made significant and at times deadly interventions to ensure that such forward thinking did not take root and flourish within the unionist community.

All of this speaks volumes about the risks for peace that these loyalists had willingly undertaken.

The author also expresses criticism about a lack of response from Sinn Féin at that time, although Dáithí Ó Conaill had described them as “interesting”.

But the question remains: did republicans miss an important opportunity to engage and develop discussion?

In my view, republicans should have more fully explored the potential for engagement and I believe that we are suffering from a deficit of mutual understanding even now, some 15 years after the Good Friday Agreement.

Whilst it would not be credible to argue that republicans could accept an ‘internal’ solution as proposed in these loyalist papers, the author nevertheless demonstrates that loyalists had published a series of proposals for radical reform of the North (including responsibility sharing) which had they been recognised as a basis for an open-ended dialogue could well have accelerated the more inclusive process that eventually emerged.

Did the loyalist proposals address all of the options, including the constitutional aspirations of all sections of our shared (but conflicted) community? Did they believe that an internal solution underpinned by voluntary ‘responsibility-sharing’ would be sufficient for republicans and nationalists, who were clearly articulating the principle of national self-determination?

Did loyalists approach these issues in 1974 from a perspective that republicanism would be defeated by the combined forces of the British state and their ‘allies’ in the North?

Did their proposals represent an acknowledgement of the abuses of unionist misrule?

These questions remain fundamental, even if politics and circumstances have been transformed since the Good Friday Agreement.

Other issues referenced in the book are equally vital.

For example, the curious and contradictory relationship between the broad unionist community and the various loyalist factions, especially when the latter had sought an electoral mandate which would at least have bestowed some negotiating muscle to their proposals. Despite 50 years of failure, the unionist electorate were not about to abandon the Ulster Unionist Party or the DUP. Given that political reality, how could loyalist leaders (no matter how sincere) expect Sinn Féin to believe that mainstream unionist parties and the unionist electorate would be remotely interested in a peace dialogue?

Nor did those loyalist leaders address how the British (not to mention the Irish Government) were going to be brought to the negotiating table in the 1970s, especially during the so-called ‘Ulsterisation’, ‘militarisation’ and ‘criminalisation’ period.

‘Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity’ adds considerably to a wider appreciation of aspects of loyalist thinking as a positive element within unionist grassroots. It details the disillusionment with ‘big house’ unionism, the nascent cross-community and working-class interaction (including secret talks with republicans), and the recognition that the British Government was prepared to sabotage attempts to build working-class solidarity.

The book furthermore affirms that mainstream unionism (post the Good Friday Agreement) remains in denial and retreat from the concepts of equality and parity of esteem; and the ‘dark side’ of the British Government are still plying their trade in our country.

This presents a challenge for new thinking and leadership and, despite many remaining problems, the interaction and co-operation between former combatants at interface flashpoints and the developing openness to engage in ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ is the modern-day equivalence of the pioneering work of Gusty Spence, Gibson, Mitchell and others.

Who else but former combatants would create a sustainable dialogue about dealing with the past, reconciliation or indeed the dismantling of the obscene monuments to divided society, the so-called ‘peace walls’?

Tony Novosel  is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Pittsburgh. Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity: The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism (Pluto, 2013).

This article first appeared in the August edition of An Phoblact.

Next Time:  One of the most popular of Ulster’s traditional flute bands– The Whiterock –have a long and illustrious history.  Longkeshinsideout will cover that–since their inception in 1962 up until the present day–complete with rarely seen photographs.