April 4, 1941. Reversals

O'Connor in captivity.

Symbolizing the sudden reversal of fortune in the Desert, a German patrol captured Gen. Richard O'Connor, the commander of the British forces in Egypt.  On the same day the Germans took Derna, Libya.

The British had already striped British forces in North Africa to supply them to the mission to Egypt, and that was followed by German gains in Libya.  O'Connor's capture somewhat symbolized the reversals the British were now seeing.

O'Connor would remain a prisoner of the Italians until their surrender, at which point he was reincorporated into the British command structure and held significant commands until the war's end.  He retired in 1948, but lived a very long life after the war, dying in 1981 at age 91.

O'Connor was Anglo Irish, of a military family, and had been born in India.

On the same night, British Ireland was struck by the Luftwaffe on the first of its prolonged raids on Belfast.

Clearing rubble in Belfast.

The British government introduced a budget which dramatically increased taxes and forced savings in an application of Keynesian economics.  It was an effort to address inflation. The British public took it well.

The British also broke diplomatic relations with Hungary.

November 21, 1920 Bloody Sunday

This day is remembered to history as Bloody Sunday, one of two days in Irish history bearing that unfortunate title.  The day featured violence on both sides.

The day started with Michael Collins' men of the IRA targeting members of the "Cairo Gang" for assassination.  Many of the fifteen men killed by the IRA were British Army intelligence officers assigned to that effort with a few policemen and a few people of unknown allegiance also killed in the early morning action.

Photograph commonly claimed to be the Cairo Gang, but for which there is some doubt and which may actually be of the Igoe Gang.  RIC officers who worked undercover.

That afternoon British police forces raided a football match at Croke Park. The force was a mixed one of RIC personnel and Auxiliaries.  The situation was tense and shooting broke out, resulting in the British forces firing over 200 rounds and ultimately killing fourteen people.  The RIC later claimed that they were fired on first, but there is little evidence to support it. Testimony by municipal police who simply happened to be on duty there due to the football match was to the contrary. The best evidence is that the RIC and Auxillaries simply stormed in and began shooting.

Croke Park today, after being expanded. From Wikipedia Commons.

That evening two IRA men in British custody were killed, with the British claiming they were shot while after trying to violently escape but the evidence otherwise contesting that.

Like a lot of things in the Anglo Irish War, the bloody day has been mythologized and therefore has become a legend, but probably a tragic one that is still somewhat out of context.  The RIC and the Auxiliaries were already notorious for their heavy handedness, a shocking example of which we provided earlier this week.  But the bloodiness of the day really commences with IRA assassinations aimed at what was proving to be a successful British counterintelligence action. Those killings themselves came in the context of the IRA resorting a war of murder which has, over the years, been glossed over to be presented as a sort of urban guerilla war.  In reality, given their weakness in comparison to the British, they were terrorists and justified their actions in the context of their goals.  The British counterintelligence actions came in that context and were proving successful, but not so successful that the IRA wasn't able to figure them out and strike back, as the did on this day.

The killings later that day by the RIC were marked by the unwise decision to raid a football match, something of questionable purpose at best, and an even worse decision given the tensions that had developed during the day.  Given the nature of the RIC and the Auxiliaries, and the British counterintelligence effort in general, the chances of it turning into a bloodbath featuring what might have simply been reprisal killings of innocent people was high.  The RIC was already turning the minds of the uncommitted Irish, whom were a majority of the population, against the British and something like this was guaranteed to greatly increase that trend

Oddly the number of people killed in the 1972 Bogside Massacre by British paratroopers when they opened up on civil rights protesters was fifteen people, with eleven more wounded, making it about equivalent in terms of loss of life by British arms in a similar event.  It's that event that was commemorated in U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The British Conservatives Win Big (but Scottish Nationalist do too).

And so nationalism, both of the union and disunion type, triumphed over a British left that was going more left.

The Labour Party's defeat today in the UK was blistering.  Boris Johnson, whom some compare to Donald Trump, probably inaccurately, took a Conservative Party that lacked a majority six weeks ago and demolished a British left tainted by a leader who made anti Semitic comments while his already left wing party went further left.

So the results are that a British Conservative Party will dominate in a way that it hasn't for decades, even while Scottish nationalism appears resurgent.  Some predict that Northern Ireland will turn toward the Irish Republic, although quite frankly that seems extremely unlikely, and that the United Kingdom will fall apart.

I doubt that, but this British election does have a lesson for the American one.  Simply detesting an opponent and claiming he's boorish isn't a platform.  And in an era in which old nationalism, of both the conservative and radical variety, are resurgent, being an internationalist isn't a lesson for success.

The United States isn't the United Kingdom, but U.S. Democrats should take note.  Labourites were counting on Johnson's own character defeating the Conservatives not only miscalculated, they didn't calculate at all.  American Democrats counting on Trump defeating himself in the fall of the next year may likewise be making a tremendous miscalculation.  Indeed, my prediction is that the impeachment that the Democratic Party is about to launch the country into will turn first into a failed impeachment trail and then be used by President Trump as a bloody flag during the election.  It'll become the symbol of a "do nothing Congress" allied to the "Deep State".

Exactly how the Labour Party should have approached this election isn't clear to me.  It would seem, however, that opposing Brexit, which they had to do, shouldn't have been the hill that they chose to die on, if they did.  But beyond that, I suspect the following comment by a Labour MP sums up a lot quite quickly:

Caroline Flint

@CarolineFlintMP

We’re going to hear the Corbynistas blame it on Brexit and the Labour Uber Remainers blaming Corbyn. Both are to blame for what looks like a terrible night for Labour. Both have taken for granted Labour’s heartlands. Sorry we couldn’t offer you a Labour Party you could trust.

And that too should provide a lesson for U.S. Democrats.  Demographics that the Democrats have depended upon for decades are now showing disinterest in the party at what should be, for them, alarming rates.  That doesn't mean that the some voters are becoming Republicans, they probably only are in very small numbers. But it does mean that they are no longer reliable Democratic voters.  In spite of that, the Democrats have been taking positions that are contrary to these demographics even while basically claiming them as their own.

Whatever the lessons for American politicians are, I doubt they'll be learned. Labour learned a lesson tonight, but it may be years before they really digest the lesson to where they can adjust to it.  And, for that matter, the Scottish Nationalist Party may have learned false lessons in the same way that the Parti Quebecois has had, and then been forced to adjust to, over the years, that being a protest against Ottowa, or London, doesn't really necessarily mean that its a vote to depart.