‘It was the done thing’: Southern Irish Protestants and the Second World War

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-198
Author(s):  
Joseph Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Second World War ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
Family Tradition ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World ◽  
Lobby Group

During the Second World War, members of the southern Protestant community occupied a curious position in neutral Ireland. The majority, including former unionists, were openly sympathetic to the Allied cause and many actively supported Britain's war effort, but there was also a broad consensus that the policy of neutrality had been the correct course for the Irish state. This duality, incomprehensible to British contemporaries bitterly critical towards Irish neutrality, was also, until quite recently, not fully appreciated by the wider Irish public. This chapter assesses the attitudes of the southern Irish Protestant community during the war by exploring mail censorship reports and excerpts from well-known Irish Protestant publications. It examines attempts by a lobby group, composed of Irish ex-British officers living in Britain, many of them former unionists, to defend the integrity of the neutral Irish state to the British government, while simultaneously denouncing the Northern Ireland government for their antagonism towards Dublin. Lastly, it explores the contribution that was rendered to the British war effort by members of the younger generation through service in Britain’s armed forces. It does so by analysing the motives of young Irish Protestants who enlisted in the British forces, a study which, although verifying a very defined affiliation with Britain and a strong family tradition of military service in British uniform, highlights the approval of many Irish Protestant ex-service personnel for the policy of Irish neutrality.

British Communists, the British Empire and the Second World War

2004 ◽  
Vol 65 ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Redfern
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Second World War ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

For a few years after its foundation in 1920 the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) attempted, energetically prompted by the Comintern, to work in solidarity with anticolonial movements in the British Empire. But after the Nazi victory in Germany the Comintern's principal concern was to defend the Soviet Union and the liberal democracies against the threat of fascism. British communists criticized the British Government for failing to defend the Empire against the threat from its imperial rivals. After the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941 they vigorously supported the British war effort, including the defense of Empire. This was not though simply a manifestation of chauvinism. British communists believed that imperialism was suffering a strategic defeat by “progressive” forces and that colonial freedom would follow the defeat of fascism. These chimerical notions were greatly strengthened by the allies' promises of postwar peace, prosperity and international cooperation. In the last year or so of war British communists were clearly worried that these promises would not be redeemed, but nevertheless supported British reassertion of power in such places as Greece, Burma and Malaya. For the great majority of British communists, these were secondary matters when seen in the context of Labour's election victory of 1945 and its promised program of social-imperialist reform.

scholarly journals The formation of the Ulster Home Guard

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (158) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
William Butler
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Police Force ◽  
British Government ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores the problems encountered in the formation of the Ulster Home Guard, supposedly a direct equivalent to its well-known British counterpart, as part of the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary in Northern Ireland, during the Second World War. Predictably, the Ulster Home Guard became an almost exclusively Protestant organisation which led to many accusations of sectarianism from a variety of different national and international voices. This became a real concern for the British government, as well as the army, which understandably wished to avoid any such controversy. Though assumptions had previously been made about the numbers of Catholics in the force, this article explores just how few joined the organisation throughout the war. Additionally, the article investigates the rather awkward constitutional position in which the Ulster Home Guard was placed. Under the Government of Ireland Act, the Stormont administration had no authority on matters of home defence. It did, however, have the power to raise a police force as a way to maintain law and order. Still, the Ulster Home Guard, although formed as part of the Ulster Special Constabulary, was entrusted solely with home defence and this had wider implications for British policy towards Northern Ireland throughout the Second World War.

3. Sanctifying secular wars

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-56
Author(s):  
Jolyon Mitchell ◽  
Joshua Rey
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

‘Sanctifying secular wars’ evaluates another category of religious wars: secular wars, in which religious commitment is used to pursue aims largely unrelated to religion. Shinto and Buddhism helped strengthen the Japanese war effort in the Second World War. But Japan fought a war of outward conquest. More often, when religion supports rather than motivates war, this is in situations where two religions, each related to a community more or less defined in other ways, collide. This dynamic can arguably be seen at work in Serbia during the Battle of Kosovo Polje (1389), in Northern Ireland, in Sudan, in the Biafra war in Nigeria (1967–70), and in Sri Lanka.

Military and Labour Recruitment in the Gold Coast During the Second World War

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Killingray
Keyword(s):  
Military Service ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
Gold Mines ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
Second World

During the Second World War the British West African colonies supplied raw materials and manpower for the war effort. The small peacetime army of the Gold Coast increased to nearly 70,000 men, including technical and service corps, and was used in overseas campaigns. Most soldiers were drawn from the supposed martial peoples of the Northern Territories but recruiting was extended to Asante and the south in mid-1940. Although formal conscription was only applied to drivers and artisans, a large number of recruits were forcibly enlisted through a system of official quotas imposed on districts and through chiefs. Opposition to military service, especially for overseas compaigns, was widespread and is indicated by the attempts to evade recruiting parties and also the large number of desertions. In order to release labour for the military and also conserve scarce supplies of raw materials, some gold mines were closed. Wartime shortages, inflation and the lack of jobs after the war led to discontent in the Gold Coast but there is little evidence to indicate that this resulted in a significant number of ex-servicemen being drawn into political activity.

scholarly journals ‘An Arena of Glorious Work’: The Protection of the Rural Landscape Against the Demands of Britain's Second World War Effort

Rural History ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
GARY WILLIS
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Rural Landscape ◽  
World War ◽  
Rural Land ◽  
Rural Land Use ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

Abstract:This article explores the development of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England's (CPRE) policy response to the increasing demands for rural land by the armed forces and other war effort-related government departments prior to and during the Second World War. The CPRE was supportive of Britain's war effort, but nevertheless throughout the war sought to remain an effective advocate for the preservation of the rural landscape – a landscape that was regularly evoked by state propaganda to stimulate the population's support for the war effort, yet was subject to alteration and degradation by that very effort. The result was a generally private campaign of lobbying characterised by opposition to some war effort-related proposals for rural land use, acquiescence to others, and consistent efforts to seek to ensure that requisitioned land was returned to its prewar use. Central to the CPRE's capacity to influence was a consultative mechanism created by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938, which established the CPRE as a stakeholder that government ministries were required to consult with over their proposed use of land in rural areas for airfields, training camps, war industry, and other purposes. The immediate postwar legacy of this work, both for the CPRE and the rural landscape, is also examined. This article therefore contributes, albeit from a tangential perspective, to the growing historiography on the militarisation of landscapes, defined by Coates et al. as ‘sites that have been fully or partially mobilised for military purposes’.2

scholarly journals Technical School in Toronto: Growing up in the Trades during the Second World War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Allison
Keyword(s):  
Technical Education ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Canadian Armed Forces ◽  
Technical Students ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Il Y A ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTThis article examines technical education in Toronto, Canada during the Second World War. Research on this topic reveals that there were enhanced links and patterns of interactions between the Toronto schools and the Canadian Armed Forces during the war. In particular, it was found that the war effort had a profound effect on technical education in Toronto because it strengthened links between the military and technical secondary schools, changed the curriculum and the school calendar, and helped attract technical students towards work in the armed forces and industry. The author examined these questions using primary sources from Toronto school archives and other City of Toronto archives.RÉSUMÉCet article s’intéresse à l’enseignement technique à Toronto (Canada) pendant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Cette recherche révèle qu’il y a eu des relations étroites et des modèles d’interactions entre les écoles torontoises et les Forces armées canadiennes durant la guerre. Entre autres, on a découvert que l’effort de guerre a eu des répercussions profondes sur l’enseignement spécialisé à Toronto. Il y a eu des rapprochements entre les militaires et les écoles techniques secondaires, on a modifié les programmes d’études et le calendrier scolaires et on a stimulé l’intérêt des élèves pour le travail dans l’armée et l’industrie. Cette recherche s’appuie sur des sources primaires provenant des archives des écoles torontoises et de la ville de Toronto. 

Implications

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Regime ◽  
World War ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Middle Position ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Second World

This chapter turns to the present and explains the implications of the current study for the ongoing debate about the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in particular about the role of loyalty and disloyalty in the Soviet war effort. It argues that this study strengthens those who argue for a middle position: the majority of Soviet citizens were neither unquestioningly loyal to the Stalinist regime nor convinced resisters. The majority, instead, saw their interests as distinct from both the German and the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, ideology remains important if we want to understand why in the Soviet Union more resisted or collaborated than elsewhere in Europe and Asia.

scholarly journals Recalling Victory, Recounting Greatness: Second World War Remembrance in Xi Jinping's China

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Vincent K.L. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
World War ◽  
National Unity ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Second World ◽  
Critical Turning Point

Abstract The recent surge in public remembrance of the Second World War in China has been substantially undergirded by a centrally planned and systematically implemented discursive shift which has remained overlooked in the literature. This study examines the revised official narrative by drawing on three cases from China's school curriculum, museums and formal diplomacy. It finds that the once dominant trope of “national victimization” no longer represents the main thrust in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) rhetoric on the Second World War. Under Xi Jinping, this has been replaced by a self-assertive and aspirational narrative of “national victory” and “national greatness,” designed to enhance Beijing's legitimacy and advance its domestic and foreign policy objectives. By emphasizing national unity and CCP–KMT cooperation, the new narrative offers an inclusive and unifying interpretation of China's war effort in which the victory in 1945 has come to rival the 1949 revolution as the critical turning point towards “national rejuvenation.” The increasingly Sino-centric and centrally controlled narrative holds implicit warnings to those challenging Beijing's claim to greatness.

A Quantitative Description of the Henan Famine of 1942

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 2007-2045 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY GARNAUT
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Description ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Control ◽  
World War ◽  
Food Markets ◽  
Famine Relief ◽  
Eyewitness Reports ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Bad Weather ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe Henan famine of 1942 occurred during the middle of the Sino-Japanese war, in a province that was divided between Japanese, Nationalist and Communist political control. Partly due to this wartime context, existing accounts of the famine rely almost exclusively on eyewitness reports. This paper presents a range of statistical sources on the famine, including weather records, contemporary economic surveys and population censuses. These statistical sources allow similarities to be drawn between the Henan famine and other famines that occurred during the Second World War, such as in Bengal, when the combination of bad weather, war-induced disruptions to food markets, and the relegation of famine relief to the war effort, brought great hardship to civilians living near the war front.

“The Dusky Doughboys”: Interaction between African American Soldiers and the Population of Northern Ireland during the Second World War

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 1131-1154 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON TOPPING
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Northern Irish ◽  
Black Soldiers ◽  
American Military ◽  
The People ◽  
Second World

This article will examine the ways in which the people of Northern Ireland and African American troops stationed there during the Second World War reacted to each other. It will also consider the effect of institutional racism in the American military on this relationship, concluding that, for the most part, the population welcomed black soldiers and refused to endorse American racial attitudes or enforce Jim Crow segregation. This piece argues that, bearing in mind the latent racism of the time, the response of the Northern Irish to African Americans was essentially colour-blind, and this was true in both the Protestant and Catholic communities.

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