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The Dark Side of Independence: Paramilitary Violence in Ireland and Poland after the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2010

JULIA EICHENBERG*
Affiliation:
Centre for War Studies, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; eichenbj@tcd.ie.

Abstract

This article analyses excesses carried out against civilians in Ireland and Poland after the First World War. It shows how the absence of a centralised state authority with a monopoly on violence allowed for new, less inhibited paramilitary groups to operate in parts of Ireland and Poland. The article argues that certain forms of violence committed had a symbolic meaning and served as messages, further alienating the different ethnic and religious communities. By comparing the Irish and Polish case, the article also raises questions about the obvious differences in the excesses in Poland and Ireland, namely in terms of scale of the excesses and the number of victims and, central to the Polish case, the question of antisemitism.

Le côté noir de l'indépendance. formes de violence paramilitaire dans l'irlande et la pologne de l'après-guerre, 1918–1923

Cet article analyse les excès contre les civils en Irlande et en Pologne après la Première Guerre mondiale. Il montre que l'absence d'une autorité étatique centralisée, jouissant d'un monopole sur la violence a permis à de nouveaux groupes paramilitaires plus violents d'opérer dans certaines régions de l'Irlande et de la Pologne. L'auteure démontre que certaines formes de violence commises avaient une signification symbolique et avaient valeur de messages, qui séparaient davantage les différentes communautés religieuses et ethniques. En comparant les cas irlandais et polonais, l'article s'interroge aussi sur les différents types de violence observée dans les deux pays, tant au niveau de son ampleur que du nombre des victimes, et examine la question de l'antisémitisme, qui est central dans le cas polonais.

Die dunkle seite der unabhängigkeit. paramilitärische gewalt in irland und polen nach dem ersten weltkrieg

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht gewalttätige Übergriffe gegen Zivilisten in Irland und Polen nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Er zeigt wie die Abwesenheit eines zentralen Staates mit Gewaltmonopol in beiden Ländern eine neue Form kaum eingeschränkter Gewalt seitens paramilitärischer Gruppen entstehen lässt. Die Autorin argumentiert, dass die hier dargestellten Formen der Gewalt zudem eine symbolische Bedeutung innehielten und als Botschaft dienten, welche die ethnischen und religiösen Gemeinschaften weiter entzweite. Durch den Vergleich von Irland und Polen diskutiert der Artikel auch Fragen über die offensichtlichen Unterschiede der Gewalt in den beiden Ländern, insbesondere in Bezug auf das Ausmaß der Gewalt und die Opferzahlen und in Bezug auf den in Polen zentralen Antisemitismus.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 See Julia Eichenberg and John Paul Newman, introduction to this issue, 183–94.

2 Horne, John and Kramer, Alan ‘War between Soldiers and Enemy Civilians, 1914–1915’, in Chickering, Roger and Förster, Stig, eds., Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), 153–68, 161–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For military violence against civilians see ibid. For ethnically motivated (crowd) violence see, e.g., the works of Natalie Zemon Davis and Stanley Tambiah. Fruitful insight might be gained from a comparison of crowd violence in these regions and crowd excesses taking place about the same period in Ulster. They are not part of this article, however, which concentrates on the territory of the Irish Republic. For a comparison of violence in the Six Counties and Upper Silesia, see Wilson, Timothy, ‘Ritual and Violence in Upper Silesia and Ulster, 1920’, Journal of the Oxford University History Society (Hilary, 2004), 124Google Scholar. See also Wilson, , ‘Ghost Provinces, Mislaid Minorities: The Experience of Southern Ireland and Prussian Poland, 1918–1923’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 13 (2002), 6186CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wilson's comparison here is highly enlightening. However, Wilson focuses on the comparison of Ireland with Upper Silesia, leading him to stress a major difference in both cases to support his arguments on violence: while the distinction in Ireland was sectarian, the distinction in Poland/Upper Silesia was about language (‘Ghost Provinces’, 64), and draws his conclusion abut the difference in violence from this. This article regards eastern Poland as a more promising comparative study, as religious and sectarian differences are as crucial as in Ireland.

4 See Geyer, Michael, ‘Some Hesitant Observations Concerning “Political Violence”‘, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 4 (2003), 695708, 696CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The term ‘semiotics of violence’ was first used by Kostas Retsikas, ‘The Semiotics of Violence: Ninja, Sorcerers, and State Terror in Post-Soeharto Indonesia’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 162 (2006), 56–94. However, the use of the concept ‘semiotics of violence’ in this article does not particularly follow Retsikas's definition.

6 Statistics for the Irish war of independence suggest about 200 civilian casualties, 150 of them in 1921. Hopkinson, Michael, The Irish War of Independence (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2002), 201–2Google Scholar. No figure exists for civilian deaths in the Irish civil war, but military casualties are estimated at about 800 (government figures for January 1922–April 1924). Hopkinson, , Green against Green: The Irish Civil War, 2nd edn (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004), 272–3Google Scholar. About 250 are supposed to have died in Dublin during the fights over the Four Courts. Kissane, Bill, The Politics of the Irish Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2005), 78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In eastern Poland, any attempt to give an accurate account for assaults and deaths was inhibited by the difficulties of reorganising local and state government control after the long period of territorial division. However, the casualties obviously exceed the Irish figures for military as well as civilian deaths. For some indications of the extent of violence see Wróbel, Piotr, ‘The Seeds of Violence: The Brutalization of an East European Region, 1917–1922’, Journal of Modern European History, 1 (2003), 125–48, 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussions on the scale of Jewish casualties see Kapiszewski, Andrzej, ‘Controversial Reports on the Situation of Jews in Poland in the Aftermath of World War I: The Conflict between the US Ambassador in Warsaw Hugh Gibson and American Jewish Leaders’, Studia Judaica 7 (2004), 257304Google Scholar. Several commissions were set up to investigate antisemitic violence in Poland and published their results in reports. Israel Cohen, special commissioner of the Zionist Organisation in London, was the first to start enquiries into the situation in Poland in December 1918. His report told of massive antisemitic pogroms and outrages, estimating the death toll of victims at about 800. Cohen, Israel, A Report on the Pogroms in Poland (London: Zionist Organisation, 1919)Google Scholar. See also Cohen, Israel, ‘My Mission to Poland (1918–1919)’, Jewish Social Studies, 13, 2 (1951), 149–72Google Scholar. A following report provided by the US ambassador Hugh Gibson (appointed April 1919) on the specific orders of the Foreign Ministry acknowledged the incidents, but adopted Polish reproaches about Jewish disloyalty and denied the existence of pogroms. Eventually, the Morgenthau Commission was set up in mid-1919 to verify the accounts. His report was more balanced than the first two, stating ‘strong prejudices against Jews’ as well as supporting some of the Polish arguments. The death toll according to Morgenthau's report was up to about 280 killed civilians (not including Ukrainians or Polish casualties). Kapiszewski, ‘Controversial Reports’, 293. Interestingly, a similar commission, the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, was set up to report on events and excesses by the British Forces in Ireland. They collected evidence and Irish witness statements in the United States. See Hughes, Katherine, ed., English Atrocities in Ireland: A Compilation of Facts from Courts and Press Records (New York: Friends of Irish Freedom, 1921–2)Google Scholar.

7 For the events of November 1918 and the shift from world war to independence to the following border wars in Poland see Łossowski, Piotr, Zerwane Pęta. Usunięcie okupantów z ziem polskich w listopadzie 1918 roku (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1986)Google Scholar.

8 See Eichenberg and Newman, introduction; ‘Borderlands: Ethnicity, Identity, and Violence in the Shatter-Zone of Empires since 1848’ (2003–2007) at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, co-ordinated by Omer Bartov; Bloxham, Donald, The Final Solution: A Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2009), 81 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Baberowski, Jörg: ‘Kriege in staatsfernen Räumen. Russland und die Sowjetunion 1905–1950’, in Beyrau, Dietrich, Hochgeschwender, Michael and Langewiesche, Dieter, eds., Formen des Krieges (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007), 291309Google Scholar.

10 See Rezmer, Waldemar, ‘Polacy w korpusie oficerskim armii niemieckiej w I wojnie światowej (1914–1918)’, in Wojciechowski, Mieczysław, ed., Społeczenstwo polskie na ziemach pod panowaniem pruskim w okresie I wojny światowej (1914–1918): zbiór studiów (Toruń: Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika, 1996), 137–48Google Scholar; Deák, István, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848–1918 (Oxford University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Rydek, Jan, W służbie cesarza i króla. Generałowie i admirałowie narodowości polskiej w siłach zbrojnych Austro-Węgier w latach 1868–1918 (Cracow: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2001)Google Scholar,

11 Davies, Norman, Im Herzen Europas: Geschichte Polens (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2001), 103Google Scholar; Rezmer, ‘Polacy w korpusie oficerskim’, 140.

12 Ossolineum, Wrocław, 12925/III 1885–1939; Karol Baczyński, ‘Pamiętniki względnie Wspomnienia o ruchu I pracy niepodległościowej mojej I młodzieży polskej we Lwowie’ w latach od r. 1885 do 1914, o służbie w Legionach Polskich i wojsku polskim w latach 1914–1921 oraz pracy społecznej od r. 1924 do 1935, Mikrofilm 2429, Zeszyt 5: 18 Nov. 1915–14 Nov. 1918.

13 Rodowody i Symbolika Formacji Górnośląskich, 11 Pułk Piechoty, set up in November 1918 with former POW members, filled ranks with former legionnaires, Polish soldiers from the former 13 Austrian Schützenbataillon, and volunteers. Moś, Wojciech B., Wojsko Polskie i Organizacje paramilitarne (Katowice: Silesia, 1997), 25–6Google Scholar.

14 The 3 Pułk Strzelców Podhalańskich was set up late October 1919 on the basis of the 2 Pułk Instrukcyjny Grenadierów Woltyżerów of the Haller's Army. The 4 Pułk Strzelców Podhalańskich was formed in May 1919 France from the 19 Pułku Strzelców Polskich (Haller's army). In June 1919 it was transported to Poland and re-organised in September 1919 according to new Polish standards. Its new name was 143 Pułk Piechoty Strzelców Kresowych. From October 1919 it was employed against Ukrainians, then from March 1920 as 4 Pułk Strzelców Podhalańskich against Soviets. Ibid., 20–1, 24–5.

15 On 9 September, three months after the disarmament of Gen. Dowbór-Muśnicki's corps, the Związek Wojskowych Polaków w Wilnie, was set up in Vilna, initiated by Maj. Bobiatynski,. They organised five artillery battalions and one battalion of Ulans. Among the new volunteers, officers of Dowbór formed the majority of the officer corps. Biblioteka Narodowa Zbiór Specjalny (BN Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Andrzej Brochocki: Wspomnienia wojenne z 13-go pułku ułanów Wileńskich. Okres walk od Samoobrony Wileńskiej w 1918 r. do zawarcia rozejmu z Litwinami w 1920 roku, 4B.

16 Liulevicius, Vejas Gabriel, Kriegsland im Osten. Eroberung, Kolonisierung und Militärherrschaft im Ersten Weltkrieg (Hamburg: Hamburger Ed., 2002), 432–6Google Scholar.

17 Schuster, Frank M., Zwischen allen Fronten. Osteuropäische Juden während des Ersten Weltkrieges (1914–1919) (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004), 172Google Scholar.

18 For details on the war of independence, see Hopkinson, War of Independence.

19 Robert Gerwarth and John Horne, ‘Introduction’, in Gerwarth and Horne, eds., Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War, 1917–1923 (forthcoming).

20 Ibid.; Hart, Peter, The IRA at War 1916–1923 (Oxford University Press 2003)Google Scholar; Hopkinson, Green against Green.

21 On the question of how far the experience of the First World War by affected the behaviour of British soldiers in Ireland see Gregory, Adrian, ‘Peculiarities of the English? War, Violence and Politics 1900–1939’, Journal of Modern European History, 1 (2003), 4459CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’. ‘[N]ew reports from Boruzia that Ukrainians burned down a Polish village and murdered [civilians] without any good reason.’ Ibid., 194 (11 Nov. 1918).

23 Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’, 159 (17 Oct. 1918), 165–6.

24 Wróbel, ‘Seeds of Violence’, 138.

25 The term ‘franc-tireur’ originated in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–1 and was used to describe irregular forces. Horne, John and Kramer, Alan, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven: Yale University Press 2001)Google Scholar, 149–50 (quoted according to the German translation Deutsche Kriegsgreuel 1914. Die umstrittene Wahrheit (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition 2004), 9). Fear and ‘autosuggestion’ of combatants about civilians being franc-tireurs, about combatants dressing in civilian clothes and fighting a ‘people's war’ were used to justify assaults against civilians. Ibid., 124, 150 ff. The franc-tireur myth also represented fears of death (ibid., 173 ff., 200 ff.) and was used even by the military command to manipulate their troops (ibid., 202 ff.). For more details of the development of the franc-tireur myth see ibid., ch. 3.

26 Przemysław Różański, Wilno, 19–21 kwietnia 1919 roku, Kwartalnik Historii Żydów/Jewish History Quarterly, 1(217) (March 2006), 13–34, 21–22.

27 Wróbel, ‘Seeds of Violence’, 139.

28 Engel, David, ‘Lwów, November 1918: The Report of the Official Polish Governmental Investigating Commission’, Kwartalnik Historii Żydów/Jewish History Quarterly, 3 (211) (2004), 387–95, 391Google Scholar.

29 Tambiah, Stanley, Levelling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 1996), 236–7Google Scholar.

30 Borgonovo, John, Spies, Informers and the ‘Anti-Sinn Fein Society’: The Intelligence War in Cork City 1920–1921 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007), 42–5Google Scholar.

31 Hopkinson, Green against Green, 90–91.

32 Borgonovo, Spies, 83, 91–2.

33 This approach is still much discussed in the historiography on the subject. See, e.g., Hart, Peter, The IRA at War, 1916–1923 (Oxford University Press)Google Scholar; Hart, , The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923 (Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

34 See, e.g., Townshend, Charles, ‘Historiography: Telling the Irish Revolution’, in Augusteijn, Joost, ed., The Irish Revolution, 1913–1923. (London New York 2002), 116Google Scholar.

35 National Archives of Ireland, Bureau of Military History: Witness Statement 891: Maurice Meade: Private in the Casement Brigade, Germany; Section Commander, East Limerick Flying Column, 27–28.

36 van Ypersele, Laurence, ‘Sortir de la guerre, sortir de l'occupation. Les violence populaires en Belgique au lendemain de la Première Guerre Mondiale’, Vingtieme Siecle, 83 (July–Sept. 2004), 6574CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Virgili, Fabrice, La France ‘Virile’: Les Femmes tordues à la Libération (Paris: Payot, 2000; Eng. translation: Shorn Women. Gender and Punishment in Liberation France, Oxford: Berg, 2002)Google Scholar.

38 Incidents of women being shorn by ‘armed and masked men’ were frequent in the period between 1920 and 1923. Some of the shearings followed a previous warning, almost all were left with a written or oral message that marked the shearing as punishment for being friendly with members of the Crown forces (during the time of British presence in Ireland), or for alleged betrayal of the IRA by passing on information. See the frequent reports, especially in the Irish Times and the Weekly Irish Times.

39 Irish Times, ‘Outrage in Glencuttage’, 26 Jan. 1920, 4 (shorter article noting ‘a portion of his ear’ had been cut off), also 6 (longer, more narrative article stating both ears had been cut off).

40 The most common was tarring, sometimes feathering, the victim. Victims of tarring were, among others, Patrick Sheehy, editor of the Skibbereen Eagle newspaper, Irish Times, 25 June 1920, 5; a war veteran in Tralee for allegedly being ‘a candidate for the position of District Inspector in the RIC’, Weekly Irish Times, 18 Sept. 1920, 3; a labourer in Miltown, Killarney, for speaking with soldiers, Irish Times, 25 Sept. 1920, 8, also Weekly Irish Times, 2 Oct. 1920, 3; a carpenter was tarred, allegedly for giving information to authorities, ‘A Man Tarred’, Irish Times, 15 Nov. 1920, 5. Other forms of violence involved kidnapping or fake executions. In September 1920 a publican in Cavan was blindfolded and kidnapped because his shop had been frequented by British soldiers. Irish Times, 4 Sep. 1920, 5. At the same time reprisals aimed at the IRA sometimes included cutting the hair of men: ‘following cutting of girls’ hair in Ballinasloe two Sinn Féiners were taken from their beds by armed men. One of them had his hair cut off with a horse-clipper and the other man is missing.’ ‘Incidents in the Provinces’, Irish Times, 26 Oct. 1920, 4A.

41 This article does not deal with rape and sexual assaults, but they also took place – and are somewhat under researched in the historiography.

42 Kapiszewski, ‘Controversial Reports’, 279 ff.

43 Sofsky, Wolfgang, Traktat über die Gewalt, 2nd edn (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1996)Google Scholar. Sofsky also calls it the most democratic weapon, as it provides anybody with the power to kill at any time. Ibid., 32 ff.

44 One example being a case in Carlow where the daughter of ‘a prominent public official’ was stopped by a group of men and women (some accounts claimed women only). Witnesses and the victim claim the actual cutting was done by one of the young women, who had her face covered; ‘Political motives are assigned for the outrage’, Weekly Irish Times, 10 July 1920, 3.

45 Borgonovo, Spies, 93–94.

46 E.g. when the Jewish district of Lwów was burned down in late November 1918. Engel, Lwów, November 1918, 393–394. Accounts of arson and burnings committed by both sides are repeated frequently in memoirs and witness accounts. I.e. ‘Ukrainians burned down a Polish village and murdered [several civilians] without any good reason.’ Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’, 194: (between 11 Nov. 1918 and 14 Nov. 1918).

47 Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riots in Sixteenth-Century France’, Past and Present, 59 (May 1973), 5191, 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Ther, Philipp, ‘Chancen und Untergang einer multethnischen Stadt: Die Beziehungen zwischen den Nationalitäten in Lemberg in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jh’, in Ther, Philipp and Sundhaussen, Holm, eds., Nationalitätenkonflikte im 20. Jahrhundert. Ursachen von inter-ethnischer Gewalt im Vergleich (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2001), 123–45Google Scholar, 126.

49 For the social background of IRA combatants and also on the question of the reliability of witness statements, see Eve Morrison, ‘Identity, Allegience, War and Remembrance: The Bureau of Military History and the Irish Revolution, 1913–1923’, Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity College Dublin (forthcoming).

50 Kapiszewski, ‘Controversial Reports’, 270, 276.

51 Stanley Tambiah, Levelling Crowds, 276.

52 Horne and Kramer, ‘Soldiers and Civilians’, 162.

53 Smith, Helmut Walser, The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race across the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 4. Many accounts of beatings, humiliation and so on correspond to Walser Smith's analyses of traditional antisemitic violence as carried out in a theatrical form and usually refraining from major assaults. See BNSpecjalny (Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Brochocki, Wspomnienia wojenne, 9. BN Specjalny (Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Brochocki, Wspomnienia wojenne, 80–81.

54 ‘Like a thunderstorm peasants came into the Galician towns, and especially into Kraków and Rzeszów, where armed peasants insulted Jews in their houses and flats and beat them up and plundered their shops’. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny – Archiwum Pamiętniki Żydów Warszawa(ŻIH), Gmina Kraków [1919] Korespondencja dotycza antyżydowskich, [. . .wielka Krakowie] i innych miastach, Dokument III, 3 and 4.

55 ‘[I]n the same Lwów were [crossed out, handwritten: the Ukrainians committed] a Jewish pogrom in Lwów.’ ‘Polish journals wrote, that the Pogrom had been committed by Ukrainians, we should not trust this, having other information [sic!].’ ZIH Warszawa, 302/204 Autor: Weksztejn Anatol, Czasokres: 1874–1945 r. łowicz, Sochaczew i powiaty, miasta: Charków, Wilno, Lwów, Lublin, Warszawa, 89–90 (91–92).

56 Biblioteka Narodowa Zbiór Specjalny (Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Brochocki: Wspomnienia wojenne, 3.

57 ‘Jews had no friends among the Poles, least among the Vilna Ulans. Too well known was their enthusiastic attitude towards the bolshevists, greeting them as victors, and the cool expression in their faces when luck was on the Polish side. While marching into a Jewish shtetl, [we/they] liked to sing [Antisemitic songs].’ BN Specjalny (Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Brochocki Wspomnienia wojenne, 71.

58 L'viv, DALO, f. 257, op. 1c, spr. 44 [Donecenie komandavanija Lwowskim brigadi o jevrenickich pogromach w 1918 wo Lwowie] Teczka Nr. 49, Odpis nr. Ewid. 4 Komenda brygady lwowskiej. Akta z roku 1919. Relacje o wypadkach w dzielnicy żydowskiej we Lwowie i listopadzie 1918 r, 3.

59 ‘From 1905 on it became fashionable for Jews to speak Polish. Russian was now the language of the suppressor, ‘tsarist’, and reactionary . . . Everything was different in 1918. The Polish language was the language of Polish nationalists, who longed for Polish independence. For Jews this independence was not necessary . . . Rich and poor Jews were favourable towards the communists, Russian was the revolution's tongue, and therefore now all Jews spoke Russian.’ ‘With the bolshevist invasion of Vilna the Polish language vanished from the centre and into the suburbs. The new ruling language was Russian, as in tsarist times, but only because not all of the population spoke Jewish.’ BN Specjalny (Rękopisy), Rps BN akc 10312, Brochocki, Wspomnienia wojenne, 3–3a.

60 Horne and Kramer, ‘Soldiers and Civilians’, 163. For a more detailed discussion see Horne, John and Kramer, Alan, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 149–50Google Scholar.

61 Imperial War Museum, London (IWM) 2949 Misc 175 (2658), Account of the life of Major General Sir H. H. Tudor, KCB CMG (1871–1965), 29.

62 Ibid., 314.

63 L'viv, DALO, f. 257, op. 1c, spr. 44., 5.

64 As this note, taken during the battle of Lwów, states: ‘Two Jews killed by bandits, who at the same time were soldiers of the Polish army’. L'viv, DALO, f. 257, op. 1c, spr. 44, 5.

65 Horne, Kramer, Atrocities, 124; Horne and Kramer, ‘Soldiers and Civilians’, 157.

66 Tambiah, Levelling Crowds, 237.

67 RTE interview (tape in possession of Donal O'Donovan), quoted in Hart, IRA and Its Enemies, 273.

68 McDermott, Jim, Northern Divisions: The Old IRA and the Belfast Pogroms, 1920–1922 (Belfast: BTP, 2001), 35Google Scholar.

69 Wimmer, Andreas and Schetter, Conrad: ‘Ethnische Gewalt’, in Heitmeyer, Wilhelm and Hagan, John, eds., Internationales Handbuch der Gewaltforschung (Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2002), 313–29, 314CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70 Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’, Mikrofilm 2429, Zeszyt 5, 189–90 (9 Nov. 1918).

71 ‘I do not understand why the Jews would so meanly reject Polishness (polskość)? Especially in this town whose inhabitants always defended them in the worst moments? In this case, the Jews made the wrong call – and the result will be falling back on them in a fatal way!’ Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’, Mikrofilm 2429, zeszyt 6: 14 Nov. 1918 – 20 Oct. 1919, Lwów, 1–6 (14 Nov. 1918).

72 Referring to a written agreement with the Polish command from 10 Nov. 1918 that Jewish militia would join the fighting on neither the Polish nor the Ukrainian side. L'viv, DALO, f. 257, op. 1c, spr. 44, 6.

73 ‘Jews are a great evil for the Polish organism. Poles they will never be! Even those who seem assimilatory, who declare that they love Poland – they are no Poles . . . They only do it to serve their own interest.’ Ossolineum, 12925/III 1885–1939. Baczyński: ‘Pamiętniki’, Mikrofilm 2429, zeszyt 6, 1–6 (14 Nov. 1918).

74 Walser Smith, Continuities, 155.

75 Consider also that in this period the IRA ‘police’ regularly arrested citizens prosecuted by the underground Dáil Courts (Borgonovo, Spies, 29 (CI Report for Cork (City and East Riding), October 1920, CO 904/113), or that men were tarred and feathered for petty theft. Borgonovo, Spies, 58.