Redemption - Leon Uris [285]
American sentiment had always been strong for the Allies. France was America’s first ally and vital to America’s gaining her independence from England in 1776.
Britain represented America’s principal heritage, her language and culture, and much of her original population.
On the other hand, America had to be concerned with her large German population, as well as a large Irish contingent, vocal and with republican leanings.
Wars are generally undertaken when a greedy nation or greedy alliance has a surplus of food and munitions and men. Men are the most expendable. Wheat is much more difficult to come by, as England learned when the Dardanelles was closed and Ukrainian wheat became unavailable.
Well now, no ambitious nation or alliance is going to admit to being greedy, is it? It is imperative for a nation embarking on a war to invent and superimpose a more noble reason than greed.
The American Revolution gives a clear and stunning example of changing cause in midstream. The Revolution began throughout the colonies as a series of disconnected and scattered forays protesting British inequities, mainly in taxation.
Difficult for one to blow a tax protest into a full-blown people’s revolution. Thus the revolution elevated itself, donning the most magnificent mantle in human history by declaring it was really a war for independence and human dignity.
Take the American Civil War. This conflict came about to save the union as the result of two different economic, cultural, and moral entities trying to exist within a single nation.
Over a time, as the war developed, the brilliant Mr. Lincoln reinvented the far nobler cause that the abolition of slavery was what the war was really about.
This war now engulfing the European continent came about because two greedy alliances lusted for more of each other’s empires. However, recruiting posters could hardly read: JOIN THE ARMY BECAUSE WE ARE VERY GREEDY.
The nobler cause had to be discovered, invented, or found under a rock, did it not? What emerged, heroically, from the Allied viewpoint, was that this was a “war to save democracy” for the world and affirmed the rights of small peoples to their freedom. Belgium, for example.
However, most nations burn the candle at both ends. The Allies, in addition to saving the world for democracy, fully intended to snatch for themselves the German, Turkish, and Austrian colonies.
A number of tiny nations took the Allies at their word and reserved a seat at the postwar peace conferences and treaty signings.
Among these small peoples were the Irish, who had surely earned at least a voice in the future of their country by the Irish blood now being spilled in defense of democracy.
Ireland represented a spearhead of discontent. If the Irish came to the peace table with their very own representatives, it could set off a chain reaction throughout all of Britain’s colonies.
It became paramount to England’s postwar strategy to keep especially the Irish away from the peace table. Britain could not defend or justify this business of waging a war for democracy if the Irish dared to show up.
Thus, England launched a well-devised campaign against Irish independence:
“The British Parliament has already passed an Irish Home Rule Bill that was agreed to by the Irish Party.”
“We have thousands of Irishmen, all volunteers, in British uniform. Obviously, they must have felt very British themselves to enlist.”
“We have permitted the Irish to form their own Home Army to defend Irish soil.”
“Certain Irish scoundrels are sleeping with the Hun.”
To which I answer:
“The Irish Home Rule Bill demands Irish loyalty to the British Crown and allows the British Parliament to veto any legislation passed by an Irish government. The Irish Party is one election away from extinction.”
“Thousands of Irish joined the British Army because it was the best job offer they had ever had.”
“The Irish Home Army is of Gilbert & Sullivan caliber, its men armed