Britain’s Great War
The Great Fraud of 1914-18
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In his Irish Times (20/2/16) book review of ‘Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler’ by Stefan Ihrig, Lawrence Douglas states: “Ihrig brilliantly lays bare the ‘confluence’ between German anti-Semitic and anti-Armenian stereotypes. Jews and Armenians were treated as ‘Semitic cousins’, with the latter playing the role of ‘quasi-‘ or even ‘über-Jews’.” The…
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The Irish Times (20/2/16) has a book review of Stefan Ihrig’s ‘Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler.’ Its reviewer is a Law Professor from the U.S. Perhaps in this year of 1916 commemoration a book and a review vilifying “our gallant allies” of Germany and Turkey is called for by the…
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The September issue of History Ireland has a sympathetic article by Angus Mitchell, author of the recent 1916 book on Roger Casement, called ‘James Bryce and the Politics of Inhumanity.’ However, the career of Lord Bryce would be better summed up in George Curzon’s memorable phrase of “fatal philanthropy”. Roger Casement’s view that James Bryce…
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Another forgotten centenary of Britain’s Great War just passed by without comment. In August 1915 a Catholic Bishop, Edward O’Dwyer of Limerick, shattered the Redmondite propaganda about the Great War by stating that it was all about destroying Germany as a commercial rival and that anyone wishing to prolong it was guilty of a “crime…
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The Easter Proclamation which Padraig Pearse read from the steps of the GPO at Easter 1916 is the founding document of the Irish Republic. It makes specific reference to “our gallant allies in Europe.” Who else could these “gallant allies” be but the Germans and Turks? The founding fathers of what was to become the…
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During 1919, after the Armistice and as the Royal Navy did its work in securing Germany’s surrender to the Peace Treaty of Versailles, Lord Esher conducted an interesting correspondence with Lord Hankey. The two men had worked together in the Committee of Imperial Defence to plan the war against Germany and now the war had…
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An interesting letter about the differences between propaganda and information was written by Lord Esher to General Macdonogh on 17th October 1916. Major-General George Macdonogh was a Catholic Irishman who became Director of Military Intelligence in the British Army under Sir William Robertson in 1916. When Sir Douglas Haig replaced Robertson as BEF Commander-in-Chief he…
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Lord Esher wrote in his journal, October 2nd 1908: “Haldane suggested this morning that I should explain to the King the great change which has occurred, over the last two years, in the constitution and readiness for war of the Regular Army. It is exceedingly difficult, as I told him, to do this without tabulated…
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The following letters of Lord Esher in 1906 reveal his thoughts about the problems faced as he began to prepare England for the Great War that he and his colleagues in the Committee of Imperial Defence felt would have to be waged on Germany. They reveal that the Great War was seen as inevitable, because…
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Lord Esher had much to do with the formation of the Committee of Imperial Defence, the body which organised the planning of the Great War on Germany. In September 1903 the Prime Minister offered Esher the position of War Minister, which he declined. There is a series of correspondence from this time between Esher and…
