|
The Irish Free State offensive of July–September 1922 was the decisive military stroke of the Irish Civil War. It was carried out by the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State against anti-treaty strongholds in the south and southwest of Ireland. At the beginning of the Civil War in June 1922, the Irish Free State government, composed of the leadership faction who had accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty, held the capital city of Dublin, where its armed forces were concentrated and some other areas of the midlands and north. The new National Army was composed of those units of the Irish Republican Army loyal to them, plus recent recruits, but was, at the start of the war, still relatively small and poorly armed.〔Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green, The Irish Civil War, p127〕 Much of the rest of the country, particularly the south and west, was outside of its control and in the hands of the anti-Treaty elements of the IRA, who did not accept the legitimacy of the new state and who asserted that the Irish Republic, created in 1919, was the continuing legitimate all-island state. This situation was rapidly brought to an end in July and August 1922, when the commander-in-chief of the Free State forces, Michael Collins, launched the offensive. The offensive re-took the major towns for the Free State Government and marked the end of the conventional phase of the conflict. The offensive was followed by a 10-month period of guerrilla warfare until the republican side was defeated. ==The "Munster Republic"== (詳細はDublin, with a week of street fighting from 28 June to 5 July 1922 in which the Free State's forces secured the Irish capital from anti-Treaty IRA troops who had occupied several public buildings. With Dublin in pro-treaty hands, the conflict spread throughout the country, with anti-Treaty forces holding Cork, Limerick and Waterford as part of a self-styled independent "Munster Republic". They also held most of the west of Ireland. The Free State, on the other hand, after its taking of Dublin, controlled only of the eastern part of its territory. However, the Anti-Treaty side were not equipped to wage conventional war, lacking artillery and armoured units, both of which the Free State obtained from the British. This meant that Liam Lynch, the Chief of Staff of the Anti-Treaty IRA, hoped to act purely on the defensive, holding the "Munster Republic" long enough to prevent the foundation of the Free State and forcing the re-negotiation of the Treaty. Lynch's strategy was bitterly criticised by other anti-Treaty officers, such as Ernie O'Malley and Tom Barry. O'Malley felt that the republicans, who initially outnumbered the Government forces by roughly 12,000 fighters to 8,000 〔The estimate is that of the Provisional Government in July 1922, Hopkinson, Green Against Green, p 127〕 (and who had the bulk of the experienced fighters from the preceding Irish War of Independence), should have seized the initiative, taken the major cities and presented the British with a resurrected Irish Republic as a ''fait accompli''.〔O'Malley The Singing Flame p 140-141〕〔Meda Ryan, Tom Barry, IRA Freedom fighter p172-173〕 The thinking behind O'Malley's analysis was that time was on the side of the Free State as they could only get stronger, through supplies from the British, revenue raised from taxation and recruitment into their army, while the Republican side had only very limited means of re-supply of men, money or arms. O'Malley wrote: "Tan War experience would no longer suffice as this type of fighting would need semi-open warfare. Columns would have to be larger and their men trained to take the offensive in driving the enemy out of towns and cities... Unless our Connacht and Munster men moved on to Leinster effective opposition would be broken up piecemeal and we would soon be crushed".〔 The leaders of the Free State government, Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy, also felt that a rapid victory was essential from their point of view. To secure the withdrawal of British troops from Ireland (Collins' ultimate aim) the government would have to demonstrate its viability by suppressing what, from its point of view, was an illegal insurrection and its control all of its sovereign territory. It was with this aim in mind that they launched their offensive in July–August 1922 to re-take the south and west of the country.〔Peter Hart, Mick, The Real Michael Collins, p 399-401〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Irish Free State offensive」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|