Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2016 A History of Violence: British Colonial Policing in Ireland and the Palestine Mandate Tyler Krahe Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Krahe, Tyler, "A History of Violence: British Colonial Policing in Ireland and the Palestine Mandate" (2016). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 6011. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/6011 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A History of Violence: British Colonial Policing in Ireland and the Palestine Mandate Tyler Krahe Thesis submitted to the Eberly College at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Joseph Hodge, Ph.D., Chair Katherine Aaslestad, Ph.D. Robert Blobaum, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2016 Keywords: Great Britain, Policing, Ireland, Mandate Palestine, Black and Tans, Palestine Police, Royal Irish Constabulary, British Gendarmerie, Violence, Paramilitary Copyright 2016 Tyler Krahe Abstract A History of Violence: British Colonial Policing in Ireland and the Palestine Mandate Tyler Krahe British colonial policing dramatically evolved between 1920 and 1948. This time period represents the duration of the Anglo-Irish War, as well as British control of the Palestine Mandate. It was during the period that the security forces at work within these areas grew to combat similar nationalist populations. During the Anglo-Irish War in 1919 the security forces in Ireland found themselves unable to quell the rebellion of Irish nationalists. To supplement their inadequate numbers the Royal Irish Constabulary took on and trained large numbers of World War I veterans who were in desperate need of work. These men came to be known as the infamous 'Black and Tans'. They quickly earned a reputation for using violent tactics when dealing with the Irish Republican Army. Following the resolution of the Anglo-Irish War, many of these men were left with few employment options until the Empire came calling again. This time they were called upon to police the newly formed mandate in Palestine. A large portion of the Royal Irish Constabulary, as well as the Black and Tans immediately signed up to forge the British Gendarmerie in Palestine. This unit helped to keep the peace during years of heavy Jewish immigration into the Holy Land until 1926 when it was absorbed into the Palestine Police. Many of the same men who had started their career in Ireland continued into the Gendarmerie and further into the Palestine Police until the Mandate ended in 1948. During the 1930s and 1940s the Palestine Police at first were able to effectively police the population of the Mandate, but ultimately were unsuccessful in combating the forces of Jewish nationalism and Jewish terrorism. This study is supported by primary sources including administrative reports, commissions, personal diaries, personal correspondence, oral histories and memoirs. Further, it consults a wide range of secondary literature. iii Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….1 Historiography………………………………………………………………………….5 Sources…….……………………………………………………………………………9 Chapter I: Ireland………………………………………………….……………….…10 Home Rule and the Nationalist Rising…………………………………………11 The Easter Rising ………………………………………………………………16 The State of Policing in Ireland …………………………………………...……21 Ambush and Reprisal: Black and Tan Violence in the Anglo-Irish War…….…26 Chapter II: Transition and the Holy Land……………………………….…….……37 The Middle East During and After the First World War…………………..……38 The State of Policing in Palestine ………………………………………………42 The British Gendarmerie and the Recruitment of the Irish Contingent ……...…47 The British Gendarmerie in Palestine ……………………………………..……52 The Fall of the Gendarmerie, the Rise of the Palestine Police………….………59 Chapter III: The Palestine Police: Uprising and Revolt and Reform………...……64 Riot 1929………………………………………………………………………...65 Post-1929 Reform……………………………………………………………….76 The Riots of 1933………………………………………………………...….….84 The Arab Revolt 1936-1939……………………………………….……………92 Chapter IV: War and the End of the Mandate………………………………………106 War and Terrorism ………………………………………………..……………107 The End of Empire in Palestine……………………………………..………… 115 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………..……….132 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………..…………….134 1 Introduction In the twentieth century the manner in which the British Empire was policed inherently changed. Starting with the Royal Irish Constabulary in Ireland a new, more brutal form of paramilitary policing force emerged that stood in sharp contrast to the unarmed Metropolitan Police in London. Officers carried weapons and took on tasks the looked increasingly like those belonging to a military intelligence agency. The divide between traditional police and this new species grew even more dramatically during the Anglo-Irish War of the early 1920s. Facing low enrollment numbers, as well as an increasingly more violent nationalist enemy, the Royal Irish Constabulary began to take on large numbers of new recruits to supplement their ranks. Many of these men were veterans of the First World War and in search of a job. They became members of the Auxiliary Division and the better-known, and certainly more infamous Black and Tans. Following a brief training period that placed little emphasis on traditional police work, the units were deemed fit for duty and posted throughout Ireland. What followed was two years of constant violence between the security forces in Ireland and Irish nationalists. The nationalists attacked the British forces which they considered to be an unlawful occupying force and in return certain members of the British forces exacted violent retribution upon the nationalists. Eventually, the British Empire was forced to cut their losses in Ireland and grant independence. This however left a number of English and Irish police officers without a job and especially for many of the Irish, without a safe home to which they could return. Fortunately for these men an opportunity presented itself to continue their policing career in the newly formed British Gendarmerie in Palestine 2 The British Gendarmerie was formed in order to help police the newly formed Palestine Mandate. As Great Britain had assumed stewardship of the Mandate, a greater security force was needed to help control the boarders and keep the peace between the increasing number of Jewish immigrants and the native Arab population. Many feared that with the force being comprised almost entirely of former Black and Tan, Auxiliary, and RIC men, the brutality of their behavior in Ireland would be exported to Palestine. This however was not the case. The British Gendarmerie performed quite well and without serious incident. In fact the years of the British Gendarmerie were some of the most peaceful in the Mandate. So peaceful were these years that government spending on security was cut each successive year until in 1926 it was deemed financially necessary to disband the Gendarmerie and incorporate it into the existing Palestine Police, which had been in operation since 1920. The Mandate remained relatively peaceful as the former Gendarmes were incorporated into the force. Training and reform was already taking place in order to make them more capable police officers skilled in detection and investigation. Despite these efforts, the force proved itself unprepared to handle the reality of religious and nationalist fervor in Palestine. The 1929 Massacre set off a decade of turmoil in which the police would continually evolve through a process of revolt and reform until the onset of World War Two.1 During and after the war the force could no longer control the increasingly violent organizations of Jewish nationalism and the British Empire was forced to release yet another one of its holdings. It is the argument of this study that the security forces in Ireland began a trajectory of ever-evolving police tactics that were initially designed in response to violence in Ireland and 1 The 1929 Massacre was a large scale disturbance that took place across several districts within the Palestine Mandate. 3 later transitioned into the Palestine Mandate, grew to the greatest extent during the 1930s, and finally plateaued with the onset and aftermath of World War Two. The evolution of colonial policing in this context takes into account two societies with extremely complex and contentious histories. The forces of nationalism and religion were constantly at work serving to further muddy the already murky waters of understanding. In an attempt to provide clarity this work shall be divided into four chapters. The first chapter will focus on Ireland alone. To understand how the Royal Irish Constabulary created the base for a new type of