General Sir Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready hated Ireland. He had a sense of foreboding when summoned to Downing Street in March 1920, fearing it had something to do with “the island I had hoped never to set foot in again”, the Ireland, he said, “I loathe with a depth deeper than the sea”. Macready was a much-decorated soldier by then; he had seen active service in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, was promoted to major general in 1910 and knighted in 1912. From 1916-18, he served as adjutant general at the War Office and subsequently commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London.
The Downing Street meeting in 1920 saw him appointed general officer commanding in Ireland. As he recorded in his voluminous memoir, Annals of an Active Life, published in 1924, it would involve a task he “instinctively felt would be affected by every variation of the political weather clock and in which it was doubtful if any satisfactory result could be achieved”. As historian Keith Jeffery observed, Macready made it clear to the British government “that without a drive of Cromwellian severity (which was politically quite unacceptable) no military solution was possible in Ireland”.
The extent to which Macready’s mind was imbued with imperialism is evident in his depiction of the Irish as an inferior race: “a people characterised through past centuries by lack of discipline, intolerance of restraint and with no common standard of public morality”; the sort who could only be governed and held in check “under the protection of a strong military governor”. Taking soundings after he arrived in Dublin, he spoke to one woman who claimed to be a direct descendant of a Cromwellian soldier, who told him the solution to the problem of Irish republicans: “Shoot them all, General, shoot them all”. Macready noted wryly that this would have been “a very effective policy if it could have been carried to a logical conclusion”.
But he knew it could not be. He accepted that an eventual settlement with Irish enemies would be necessary and was appointed precisely because of his well-attuned political antennae. He also recognised that civil and social factors had to be considered when designing military strategy, believing, despite his personal prejudices, that “no amount of coercion would settle the Irish question”.
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He also parroted the usual tropes about the Irish and, indeed, the myth of British soldiers’ purity, expressing himself “astonished at the self-restraint and discipline maintained by the troops ... under provocation such as no other troops in the world would have withstood”. But whatever about his extended propaganda and disdain for armchair generals and politicians, he knew he was not in control of British policy in Ireland and that his job would be dictated by the “the spasmodic movements of the political pendulum”. Those swings were ultimately to be influenced by the desire for a political solution and the opening of dialogue with the IRA.
The great tragedy of Israel’s war on Gaza is the absence of a restraining political pendulum and the merging of Israeli political and military strategies. Exactly a year ago, the death toll in Gaza was 37,000 and much attention was given to a UN inquiry highlighting war crimes. Today, the death toll is above 55,000. Israel is still led by a Binyamin Netanyahu who, more than 30 years ago, decried compromise with Palestinians and accused Israeli politicians who advocated dialogue of being “criminals of peace” who would “face the trial of history”.
Netanyahu has consistently peddled the myth that the way to peace is to build Israel’s might. He sustains his career with the idea that the Jewish people live in a constant state of fundamental insecurity and that Palestinians have no ancient connection to the land of Israel. His political longevity is such that his biographer in 2018, Anshel Pfeffer, notes how he came to believe “the prime minister’s office was his by right”. Likewise, veteran Israeli political scientist Arye Naor has written of how “he negates the possibility that any explanation might be accepted other than that which he proposes”. He can do this because of woefully insufficient international pressure, US financial backing and because UN resolutions demanding a ceasefire are still vetoed.
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In 2025, the Israeli version of “Cromwellian severity” has been chillingly defined by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich: “We’re occupying, cleansing and staying there until Hamas is destroyed”. This military strategy will never lead to the permanent fulfilment of Netanyahu’s aims; the “war and victory” plan to “take control of the entire territory” using what he calls “the most moral army in the world”. But in the meantime, what was deemed politically unacceptable by British imperialists more than a century ago, because of domestic and international pressure and the recognition of the impossibility of peace by means of long-term coercion, is permitted today, at hideous cost.
