The British Empire Thread

Snickers Man wrote: »

Why thank you Fred.

BTW, somebody texted into Newstalk this morning and signed himself (or herself) the "world's biggest Portsmouth fan".

Could have been anybody, I suppose.

not me, I always use Fratton Fred

JACK300 wrote:

I would suggest it was because their families couldnot feed them that they joined the British Army not the other way round. Times were scarce jobs were scarce food was scarce. A (supposedly) regular wage and regular meals were a big factor in a country devastated by colonialism such as Ireland. Also british recruiters played to this fact.

Actually Fratton Fred had a point in what he said which you did not acknowledge sufficiently. There are universal reasons men join armies adventure, an idea of manliness etc. They should not be ignored as they did play apart in Irish people joining the British Army. I would acknowledge, that as interesting as they may be however, they would not in and of themselves be enough to account for the numbers of people who joined the British Army.

I think most of the points made here about Irishmen joining the BA are invalid tbh. The reason being that there was a sort of tradition among Irishmen to join continental armies, going back at least as far as the 1600s (we all know about the flight of the earls). In addition many cromwellian soldiers were free to join continental armies who were not at war with Britain after the civil war. The point being that the army was seen as a career choice, not a question of loyalty to one nation or empire. It is perfectly feasible that after the 1800 act of union (and perhaps even before) there were a fairly large number of Irishmen who saw little difference between joining the British army and a continental one.

kreuzberger wrote: »

it wasnt allowed happen . There was potato blight in england too . The working class population of england was just as dependent upon the potato as the Irish population before the blight. The population in england had swollen massively . But they didnt starve , especialy not with all that Irish food being removed from Ireland at the point of thousands of British bayonets to feed the British market .
Bad as conditions were for the english working class they had money to buy food with thanks to being employed in industry .

exactly, the British working classes had jobs and could afford to buy other food. I'm not sure about being that dependant on potatos though, I haven't heard that before.

kreuzberger wrote: »

Athur Griffiths analysis of the state of the Irish economy in that period pointed out

On the 12th of May, 1785, Pitt's new proposals were introduced in the English Parliament. They provided, among other things, that Ireland should not trade with any country where its trading might clash with the interests of England's mightiest corporation--the East India Company

Pitt after the 1801 act of union destroyed Ireland's new manufacturing industries , particularly linens, by dumping British goods there, and rapidly eliminated independent Irish shipping.

the same could be said about Scotland too, the Scots were not allowed to form their own trading companies as everything was expectred to come through the Union's trading company, the East India company.

kreuzberger wrote: »

Even worse, was the collapse in land use under Pitt and Shelburne's "free trade" policy. By the 1820s, 80 percent of all Ireland's land was owned by British and Scottish landlords, and 25 percent of all land was completely unused for any purpose except real estate speculation. Some 75 percent of what was used, was in grain or horse/cattle pasture, most of this for export by merchants under London's domination. On the remainder, the Irish grew their potatoes; on perhaps two acres of rented land for each large family.

All nineteenth-century accounts of those who saw both the Irish tenant farmers and African slaves in America and the Caribbean, agree that the Irish were far worse off. In 1845, a British government commission headed by the economist Nassau Senior counted up what free trade had done: Except during the brief potato harvest, there was no work at all for 2.4 million Irish adults; by today's calculations, 60 percent unemployment. Woolen, linen, poplin, furniture and glass manufacture had disappeared; fishing had nearly disappeared for lack of capital for boats, storage, etc. Even water-powered grain mills had disappeared, in the country which 1300 years earlier had been synonymous throughout medieval europe for the technology . There were only 39 hospitals serving 8 million people. The Duke of Wellington wrote in 1829 that "there never was a country in which poverty existed to the extent it exists in Ireland

British free trade and laissez fare was for Britian , not Ireland . Irelands manufacturing base and ability to engage in trade was deliberately curtailed to the point of its destruction . Instead it was deliberately forced into agriculture and the production of cash crops for British landlords . Virtually all the prfoits from those cash crops went directly to the city of london financing mortagges and commercial speculation . This left an Irish national population with no employment outside of harvesting the cash crops . A population which the system and its rulers viewed as an unnecessary hindrance and a political and military liability to the project of profit and exploitation which the British state was engaged with in Ireland . Profits that wer essential to the City of Londons yearly financial intake . Dean Johnathon Swift had pointed out that even decades earlier half of the revenue to the city of London emanating from within the UK came from Irish cash crops and property speculation
The potato blight brought an opportunity to the British state to put an end to that problem , the growing threat to their profit and domination , around 9 million starving unemployed people with absolutely nothing to lose but their chains . And they did get rid of that problem , very effectively . Their policies were directed towards exterminating that problem They ensured the problem starved to death and went into exile.

The Victorian government of the time saw it, as PHB pointed out, as devine intervention, as many did the Black Death when that swept across europe. Many people see HIV as devine intervention today.

The mismanagement was appalling and the blatant disregard for people's lives is unbellieveable by todays standards. Does this make it Genocide?

kreuzberger wrote: »

the population explosion in england was largely due to the potato , a very cheap , nutritious and widely available foodstuff . But in Ireland the population was reduced to a virtual potato culture and wholly dependent upon it . When the potato blight hit england its population had alternatives to turn to .

certainly the scots were at a disadvantage . But they had not been subject to penal laws and colonisation . They had not been dispossessed and subdued to the extent Ireland was over the centuries .


what makes it genocide is if the policies and actions were intended to have the effect they did . Death and exile on a grand scale , the removal of a population deemed surplus to requirements . Evictions of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, even of people paying their rent were policy . The effects of that policy was easily foreseen even in those days . That cannot be defined as disregard , it can only be defined as deliberate . The removal of the countrys food supply at the point of a gun , even in those days , was also forseeable in its effects upon the population . In previous decades during an earlier potato blight governemnt measures had been taken to prevent mass starvation , food exports were curtailed . In the run up to the holocaust senior governemnt advisors had warned them of impending catastrophe . And yet the measures introduced were calculated to exacerbate it , to take full advantage of it . The advantage was economic , in that sheep and cattle were more profitable , political and military . The population was reduced to a more managable number . Attempts to remedy the situation were repeatedly and actively blocked . The policymakers themselves stood to benefit from genocide as well as to secure their foothold politically and militarily

And far from it beiong viewed by the policy makers as a disaster or mismanagement they openly called it a success . They were even decorated and honoured for their work . So the only logical conclusion to draw is that their policies had the effect the people who made and enforced those policies had intended . Which is why they announced they were happy at the result of their policies .
So yes , I believe it most certainly qualifies as genocide .

The difference with the Scots was not that they were subjected to different laws, they just accepted them and joined in, rather than constantly rebelling. I'm not saying that was right or wrong, but they chose to fight with and not against..

In terms of the rest of your post, can you post links to bak any of that up or is it more senationalist propaganda?

Fratton Fred wrote:

Don't forget Britain's three most successful exports, Football, Rugby and Cricket

Deleted User wrote: »

All three of which are played in Ireland.

None of them, alas, particularly well.

'Cromwell - An Honourable Enemy'
by Tom Reilly
'This long overdue evaluation of Cromwell's campaign in Ireland, published on the 350th anniversary of that campaign, challenges all conventional interpretations.

Thousands of defenceless men, women and children are alleged to have lost their lives as a result of the 'scorched earth' policy of Oliver Cromwell, who has long been regarded as the most reviled figure in Irish history and who is still generally regarded there as a genocidal maniac and religious fanatic...

Yet, argues Tom, the traditional viewpoint lacks any solid evidence...


Using only contemporary sources, he examines eye-witness accounts; he also places Cromwell's conduct within the context of the seventeenth century and the rules of war then pertaining...

"With an impressive mastery of detail, he marshals the facts and concludes that Cromwell's appalling reputation appears to be undeserved; also as the first successful English military conqueror of Ireland, his emphatic success was a foregone conclusion so inadequate were the royalist forces in Ireland".

"During Cromwell's Irish mission he proved to be significantly more compassionate than many of his contempories, and he scrupulously adhered to the letter of the law of contemporary warfare while communicating with the various governors of the various garrisons throughout Ireland..!"


http://www.ely.org.uk/heros/lordcrom/CromBook.html



...............The reality is Cromwell's monster status is totally out of a proportion in Ireland, many of the things he is accused of were invented by the church and aristocrasy he fought against.

As an example in Drogheda it was mainly English royalists who were killed, not Irish at all, the same at Wexford. Cromwell came to Ireland to fight those who supported the English king.


Further, it was Catholic landowners who supported the Royalist cause who were banished not ordinary Catholics.

It was not just Irish sent off as indentured servants, another lie. English Royalists were also banished as indentured servants and subjected to the later penal laws.

On Monday 10th September Cromwell had a letter delivered to the governor, the English Royalist, Sir Arthur Aston which read:

Sir, having brought the army of the Parliament of England before this place, to reduce it to obedience, I thought fit to summon you to deliver the same into my hands to their use. If this be refused, you will have no cause to blame me. I expect your answer and remain your servant, O. Cromwell

The contemporary laws of war were clear that if surrender was refused and a garrison was taken by an assault, then the lives of its defenders would be forfeit, as Cromwell's letter strongly implies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Drogheda


After breaking into the town, the New Model soldiers pursued the defenders through the streets, killing them as they ran. A group of defenders had barricaded themselves in Millmount Fort, overlooking the town's eastern gate held out while the rest of the town was being sacked. They negotiated a surrender, but were then disarmed and killed. Another group of soldiers in St Peters church (at the northern end of Drogheda) were burned to death when the Parliamentarian soldiers set fire to the Church. Arthur Aston, the Royalist commander, was, reportedly, beaten to death with his own wooden leg, which the New Model Army soldiers thought had gold hidden in it. Richard Talbot, the future Jacobite Duke of Tyrconnell was one of the few members of the garrison to survive the sack. Only 150 Parliamentarians were killed in the attack. The few Royalists who survived were deported to Barbados. Cromwell wrote: "I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados." Though Colonel John Hewson wrote "those in the towers being about 200, did yield to the Generals mercy, where most of them have their lives and be sent to Barbados.” The 200 taken prisoner tallies with Royalist estimates. It is alleged in some accounts that as few as 700 civilians died in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Drogheda,


.......... Deporting some to the west Indies and sparing them was an act of mercy.
Rome has a had a vested intrest in playing up the Norman old English feudal Catholic rulers in Ireland and over stating the wrongs of the republican Cromwell, for obvious reasons.

Previous to indentured service captured prisoners were all executed.


Cromwells plantations were on lands taken from feudal Norman aristocrats and their Gaelic aristocratic quislings, not the rural Irish as the church has taught. The rural Irish were Norman serfs, the sad fact is they fought for their feudal masters, instead of Cromwells army, who were fighting for one man one vote.

At this time in history Catholicism meant support for monarchy, aristocracy and feudalism.

"The final official plantations took place under Oliver Cromwell’s English Commonwealth during the 1650s, when thousands of Parliamentarian soldiers were settled in Ireland".

"Having come under the influence of London radicals called the Levellers, the troops of the Army proposed a revolutionary new constitution named the Agreement of the People, which called for almost universal male suffrage, reform of electoral boundaries, power to rest with the Parliament which was to be elected every two years (by the people), religious freedom, and an end to imprisonment for debt."



Cromwell was an honorable enemy who's reputation has been historically lied about by the RC church and English landed classes.

McArmalite wrote: »

You shouldn't have gone to the trouble of posting the above, but if you used the Search function you would see that Cromwell and Tom Reilly's version of him, has been more than covered many times in this forum :rolleyes:.

Gotta be honest. It drives me mad when posters quote a massive post and then just add a few lines.
Making it harder for everyone to read :mad: